More Snow, Tiamat and Dragons, Torture of Heretics, and the Scent of Eros

Back from the Tewksbury Meineke guys where we had the car’s exhaust pipe flange replaced ... whatever that means.  Nonetheless, it worked – she is back to purring like a kitten.

Meanwhile that distant roar you heard a few days ago was the entire northeast United States learning that we  were due for yet ANOTHER snow storm.  3-5 inches, they said.  Wrong!  We got between 10-12.  Most of us screamed, “Nooooooooooooo ...!” in unison and sobbed like babies.  We are so over the “average snowfall” amount for this year it isn’t funny.

Another thing I did:  called the travel agency and had them send me the details of the trip to Sicily in May with the Sicilian Project.  Now that it’s three months away, I’m finally getting excited about it.  The Greek temples!  The warmth!  The ocean!  The Sicilian food!  Some festival, which I couldn’t tell you a thing about!  But at least I have my passport renewed!

Went to Wal-Mart to buy a few more packing/moving bins; bought a “clearance” candleholder and incense burner because – obviously forgetting that I might actually need to use the ones I already had –   I’d packed them.  So, found a three-headed dragon one, looking forlorn and abandoned on a shelf.  Looked up three-headed dragons and discovered I’d bought a Tiamat incense burner and candle holder ... said, “Cooool!”

Tiamat/Theia colliding with Earth

But in my “Tiamat” search, I ran across all the people arguing and name-calling and screaming and yelling and jumping up and down over Zecharia Sitchin’s “Nibiru/Planet X” theory, since he’s also the one who theorized that “Tiamat” or Theia was the name of the rogue planet that crashed into the young earth, creating the moon in the process.   (Or, in other words, creating general chaos in the process.  Hence:  Tiamat=Chaos.)  He was actually proven ... probably right ... by others (as far as the collision theory went).  I’m scanning all of these pages of comments and posts (again), thinking, “Oh, brother ...” and sighing heavily.

Do I believe in any of it?  Disbelieve?  I’m not going to go through my opinion on that again – been there, done that.

But anyway, I have a Tiamat three-headed dragon sitting on my desk, wafting (coincidentally enough) tendrils of Dragon’s Blood incense all over the place.  Smells nice.

I also discovered a good use for the bottle of cat litter I had sitting near the door for the next time I took a run to the Royal Crest dumpster.  I could use it to stabilize a candle in a holder that was too large for it.  Only downside:  it smelled like cat litter.  No, not USED cat litter; just the litter itself.  When they say "unscented" it only means that they didn't add a fragrance to it.  They aren't saying that you can't smell anything.  I'm smelling chemicals, or whatever it is that they put in cat litter.  Awful stuff.  Mixed it with baking soda (which you could use for the same purpose all by itself, actually), and that took care of the problem.

Yesterday, I had something of a surprise in my daily meditation ... I decided to revisit the dreamscape I mentioned earlier (some would call it my astral temple; that sounds too formally religious for my taste) and start strengthening it.  By that I mean focusing on details; making it absolutely real in touch, taste, sound, sensation.  In the depths of this meditative trance, I discovered another opening into the space I hadn’t seen before and realized it was the entrance to the space from the other side.  The surprise was when I brought myself back to full consciousness and looked at the clock, an entire hour had passed!  That in itself was astonishing, as I usually start getting antsy after five minutes.  So practice really does work when it comes to meditating.  Also, I no longer need Christopher Penczak’s guided meditations to reach that level; I was able to do it myself.


Quick backtrack to Versace’s Eros if anyone is interested.  I had the chance to inhale it! 

You know me and my fondness (not) for fragrance descriptions, which are sometimes so bizarre and ridiculous you have to laugh.  This one was refreshingly straight-forward:  “ ... fresh, woody and slightly oriental. The fragrance includes mint oil combined with green apple and Italian lemon. Warmth is provided by tonka mixed with Venezuelan ambroxan and geranium flowers giving a fougere twist to the fragrance this way. “  (Fougere, by the way, is their one bit of pretentious nonsense in an otherwise comprehensible description:  it basically means “moss-like” and refers to the woodsy components of the cologne.)

Oddly enough, after the Italian lemon (they make Limoncello from Italian lemons, which have a distinctive fragrance to them; grown mostly in Sicily, they may be unique due to the volcanic components of the soil), I smelled the vetiver (but only because I knew what vetiver smelled like) ... I will tell you one thing:  I LIKED it.  Very sexy cologne, and not because (or not only because) I’m a personal fan and admirer of Eros himself – it really does smell good.  Plus ... you know ... the lemons come from Sicily.  :)  And if you’re one of those people who clean out and re-use cool-looking bottles and jars for witchy potions, you can’t do better than this one!  That’s actually Medusa on the bottle, by the way.

In preparation for our next class on cleansing auras, I started reading one of the e-books I’ve collected:  Leland, Charles Godfrey, Your Will Power (Also Called “The Mystic Will”), or How to Develop and Strengthen Will Power, Memory, or Any Other Faculty or Attribute of the Mind, By An Easy Process, The Elizabeth Towne Co., Publishers, Holyoke, MA, 1918.

(Irreverent Thought:  ‘tis a pity he couldn’t have also developed the mystic will power to shorten his book titles …)

A bit of a meandering read, through inserted anecdotes, backtracks and sidetracks … still quite readable.  Other authors have adopted this primary method in the intervening years:  calmly announce your intention before you go to sleep and let your subconscious implement it.  I’m quite sure it isn’t original, either - I'll double check, but I think Paracelsus wrote about the process as well, and I'm not sure where HE got it from.  Nonetheless, for those of us who truly love to sleep, this seemed easy enough – until I tried to do it!

Over the last three nights:
-    the first night, I drifted off to sleep right in the middle of formulating an intent,
-    the second night I mumbled, “Wait, let me think of something to intend,” and then passed out;
-    last night I passed out sprawled sideways on the bed before I even undressed, that’s how exhausted I was.  Deeply regretted doing that a few hours later:  one of my legs was still hanging off the side of the bed, and when I woke up, my knee was screaming in pain, having been bent the wrong way for all those hours.

I will report back on the “Will Power” results ... er, when I can stay awake long enough to try it.  So I’m guessing Leland didn’t have a full time job that tired him out to the point of no return, eh?  What I eventually considered was, “I will see all auras easily”, or something along those lines, in preparation for the next class.

[Next Morning Report:  I haven’t been able to see my own aura yet, but I was completely shocked when I was able (for the first time!) to see the hidden message in one of those pictures that are sent out over Facebook and Twitter (“Can you see this message?”) and you’re supposed to respond in some way if you can.  Until this morning, I was one of those people who stared at the box every which way and never saw a thing.  I always figured it was either a function of being nearsighted, or of having a (now surgically fixed) case of strabismus in my right eye.  This morning I looked at a box someone posted, and saw the words, “I can’t sleep” in it.  Said, “OMG, I can SEE it!”  Thought that was interesting coming on the heels of the vocalized intent before falling asleep, which I finally managed to do.]

Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome

I was also reading The Pope and the Heretic: The True Story of Giordano Bruno, the Man Who Dared to Defy the Roman Inquisition by Michael White (William Morrow, 2002) on the train.  It was fascinating … until the Inquisition imprisoned him.  I remember reading another review complaining that the author went into appallingly distasteful details of the christian sadism that went into the torture of heretics.  I ended up closing the book after Bruno was put in the Castel Sant’ Angelo in Rome, because as beautiful as it is from the outside, the entrance flanked by angelic statues ... what went on in the inside is enough to turn your stomach.  I could only read up to a point before thinking, “Their deity must have been so proud of them ...” and tossing the book aside in utter nauseated disgust.  Anyway, that reviewer was correct:  White really goes into detail about the depraved forms of christian torture.

Now here’s the weird moment:  Bruno’s last moment of freedom was in Venice, where he was turned over to the Inquisition by a nasty Venetian nobleman named Giovanni Mocenigo.  I had a bad reaction when I first read the name “Mocenigo”, as in, “Ooooh, I don’t like him,” even though I had no idea who he was.  Or did I?  He was one of those well-known Venetian family names that I could have read somewhere and consciously forgot ... but the name gave me one of those inner shivers of horror, which is not typical of a name you read once or twice in a history book.  This was personal.

Recalling my previously described past life incident, and looking it up to refresh my memory, I suspect I would have disliked Alvise Mocenigo (26 October 1507 – 4 June 1577) who would have been elected Doge in 1570, during the fourth battle between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, and this was the memory I experienced while in Venice – as you’ll recall I was blissfully married to one of the young men sent to sea to fight them, and he had already returned alive from one such battle, which took place in the 1560’s.  Giovanni Mocenigo, the guy who turned Giordano Bruno in to the Inquisition was before my time there.  Point being:  if the dislike stemmed from a memory, maybe the entire family was not well liked.  Or at least not liked by me.

Fake Commenters Must Die!, Versace's Eros Finally Gets It!, the Sefer Yehzirah and Daybooks

OMG, I am so tired of the never-ending fake comments posted here by xanax and viagra pitchmen ... you don’t see them because I have to check the comments first before publishing them ... trust me, I have no problems with legitimate comments, even if the legitimate comments are, “You’re boring as shit!”, "[bleep bleep] and die!", or "I'm young, studly and rich; please marry me!" as long as there aren’t ads for viagra and penis enlargement attached to them.  I go in and delete the hackers’ nonsense every single day ... and I am so tired of deleting them!  This morning I deleted about 10 of them.  Don’t these fools ever give up?

And yes, that last one was wishful thinking.

Meanwhile #1.  Ahhh ...  enjoying a Cosmopolitan martini, which makes me feel so ... cosmopolitan!  Meanwhile #2:  we are having about 8 inches of snowfall every three days ... will I ever manage to dig myself out before spring?

Speaking of my poor, snow-covered car; our second joint spell worked too – the muffler issue was a flange that had rotted away; a muffler shop should be able to fix it for very little $$$, thank goodness.  Have an appointment in Tewksbury on Monday ... assuming I can dig myself out, that is.

Found a wizard’s forum, which is actually rather interesting ... have been reading the Goetia posts with interest.  Also located a Facebook page that posts regular links to archeological discoveries in the Iran/Iraq area ... home of Sumer, of course ... so at least there are some people out there who aren’t swishing and flicking – and then shrieking “Real witches NEVER ... (fill in the blank)!!” with pursed lips, when the vast majority of them don’t know any.  Such a relief.

So this was my next question.  I’ve been reading the Kaballic translation Sefer Yetzirah:  The Book of Creation (Aryeh Kaplan, 1997, Revised Edition, Weiser Books).  I hadn’t planned to start reading that just yet, but became engrossed in the Introduction.  Sat and read the Introduction while waiting for my car to be examined.  I was particularly interested in the authorship and history of the text, to wit:

“The earliest source to which Sefer Yetzirah is attributed is the Patriarch Abraham.”  (page xii).

By which they don’t mean that Abraham sat down and scribbled the work onto the nearest scroll; they meant that these were his teachings that were recorded by others.  The earliest assignment of the author dates back to the 10th century, when a scholar jotted down, “The ancients say that Abraham wrote it.”  Who exactly those “ancients” were is not clarified.

However, my reaction was still, “Say what?”

This was my issue with that authorship:  Abraham was a Sumerian; and not only Sumerian, the son of a very powerful (and pagan) temple priest/magus.  And supposedly, Abraham was a very wealthy, influential Sumerian as well in his own right ... influential being an understatement, because it was his household god  - yeah, that little clay statue nailed above his lintel to protect his home - that turned into the deity of the judeo-christian-islamic religions, and became known as “the god of Abraham”.

Rather than unpack a Sumerian history book (really!  I do have them!), I’ll just quote from Wikipedia on the deities of Sumer:

“Sumerians believed in an anthropomorphic polytheism, or the belief in many gods in human form. There was no common set of gods; each city-state had its own patrons, temples, and priest-kings, however they were not exclusive. The gods of one city were often acknowledged elsewhere. Sumerian speakers were among the earliest people to record their beliefs in writing, and were a major inspiration later Mesopotamian mythology, religion, and astrology.

The Sumerians worshiped:

    An as the full-time god equivalent to heaven; indeed, the word an in Sumerian means sky and his consort Ki, means earth.
    Enki in the south at the temple in Eridu. Enki was the god of beneficence, ruler of the freshwater depths beneath the earth, a healer and friend to humanity who in Sumerian myth was thought to have given humans the arts and sciences, the industries and manners of civilization; the first law-book was considered his creation,
    Enlil, lord of the ghost-land, in Nippur. He gave mankind the spells and incantations that the spirits of good or evil must obey,
    Inanna, the deification of Venus, the morning (eastern) and evening (western) star, at the temple (shared with An) at Uruk.
    The sun-god Utu at Larsa in the south and Sippar in the north,
    The moon god Sin at Ur.”

So which one was Abraham’s household god?  An?  Enlil, since Abraham is credited with practicing the highly mystical Sefer Yetzirah?  My favorite, Enki?  Which one of these became the JCI (judeo-christian-islamic) deity, Yahweh/Allah?  Definitely not Inanna, the Abrahamic tribe turned her into a harlot, even though she most assuredly wasn’t.  Probably not Utu or Sin, even though Abraham came from Ur (and no, the word “sin” did not come from the moon god; the word “sin” itself is Proto-Germanic.)  Might have been a lesser one, not listed here.

Anyway – even at that early stage – the kabbalah of the Sefer Yetzirah was still a mystical, magical oral teaching, which Abraham did not invent.  We know this because practicing the magick of the Kabbalah was considered too sacrilegious to practice alone; you had to perform the rites with another person or the gods would not look kindly on you for trying to usurp their skills and “play god” all by yourself.  According to those same “ancients”, Abraham practiced the magick with Noah’s son, Shem.  (I would really like to know who these “ancients” were, if they actually existed!  Kaplan does not identify them.)

In other words, this was something they both had to study FIRST, become proficient at, and then perform.  It had to have pre-dated both of them.  And Abraham was a Sumerian.

So where did it originate?

Kaplan hints at rituals from the near and far east carried by traders and travelers ... possibly from ancient Egypt; materials found at their sites indicated trading routes to Africa.  Archeologists just recently (as in last month) began a major excavation at Tell Khaiber in Iraq; they have a Facebook page, too (not the same one as mentioned above) so I’m following their work with interest.

Now – I do understand the Kaballah being connected with judaism because it passed through Abraham, and because so many jewish scholars studied the Kaballah and attached the Hebrew alphabet to it.  The vast majority of commentaries are jewish.  BUT, the Hebrew alphabet came from the Phoenician.  And if the Kaballah predates the patriarch of judaism, where DID it originate?  Which alphabet was connected with it?

For answers to these and all other questions ... we should all fervently hope that this book answers all of them.  I’ll keep reading.

Meanwhile, back to my Daybook.  The Pagan Book of Days is completely empty for today.  The Witch’s Book of Days announces, “Victoria’s Day promotes promotions, leadership opportunities and success!” without once telling you what “Victoria’s Day” actually was.  Only one I can find is celebrated in May, in Canada.  Grrrr.  Between the Lights waxes poetic about serving others.  The Real Witches Year has a post-Valentine’s Day “Drawing partners closer together” ritual.  Which would be lovely if I actually had one.  Interestingly enough, though, the entry for the 14th, “Eros” is actually interesting, if not a validation of what I posted well over a year ago about the infantilization of Eros in the Common Era.  (Addendum:  my observation in that entry that Aphrodite was his mother was not true of these earlier incarnations of Eros):

“According to Herodotus in his Theogony, Eros was one of the primeval gods who, along with Chaos and Gaia (Earth), were responsible for the Creation.”  (Mark Cartwright, 06 May 2013, http://www.ancient.eu.com/Eros/)

“They said that in the beginning the whole world was all one mass of stone, and there was no earth or sky or sea. Then Eros, or Love, was the only living thing; and just as the mother-hen warms her eggs till the little chicks peep out, so the Greeks said Love brooded over the world until living things appeared, and the world began to take shape.”
http://www.heritage-history.com/?c=read&author=harding&book=greek&story=eros

“According to Hesiod (c. 700 BC), one of the most ancient of all Greek sources, Eros was a primordial god, that is, he had no parents. He was the fourth god to come into existence, coming after Chaos, Gaia (the Earth), and Tartarus (the Abyss or the Underworld).” (Wikipedia)

This almost sounds like the Sumerian creation myth as well – their Ea/Enki Tiamat/Chaos, for example.

As I was hunting around for a graphic of the REAL Eros, and not those silly sanitized infants courtesy of the Common Era and their terror of sex ... I ran across a wonderful advertisement for the Versace male cologne, Eros.  Now, far be it from me to support the usual advertising hoo-ha on this blog, but this made me stop and take notice.  You can look at the images of the older Eros on Greek vases all day, but even they (and they're pretty accurate as far as his age and masculinity goes) don't do justice to the guy.  Nothing like bringing Eros up to the present and our latter day image of male beauty.  Maybe not my personal one; I'm the one drooling over Piero Barone.  But this wonderful commercial, with all of its steaming imagery, was the closest thing to Eros that I've seen in a while.  Featuring the rather strikingly tanned, oiled and buffed Brian Shimansky as the Greek god in question (minus the wings, but you get a glimpse of them as he removes his cape after climbing the pedestal) ... now THIS is Eros!  Enjoy:

http://www.essential-homme.com/2013/07/10/brian-shimansky-in-versace-eros-new-fragrance-campaign/

I wonder what it smells like?  Has anyone whiffed this cologne?

My Car Casts a Spell, Marsilio Ficino Explains Vocal Vibrations and Piero Barone Meets the Pope

The day before the Full Snow Moon – already the moon is so beautiful in the night sky.  Interesting sky news:  star gazers are able to see Jupiter quite near the moon, and Venus is also visible in the night sky.

Back from class last night.  My poor car is sounding pitiful – muffler issues, I hope? – but couldn’t take her to the doctor ... by which I mean the GM guys in Haverhill ... until I got my PIN number.  Explanation:  on Friday the 31st of January, 12 days ago, my debit card was either lost or stolen, I’m not sure which.  I discovered this late on Friday, when I had de-trained from the Haverhill line in Andover and opened my wallet in preparation for a visit to Sunoco and a tank of fuel.  No card.  Anywhere.

This is not a reassuring turn of events for a Friday night – had I left it in the office?  Had someone taken it?

I had many years earlier switched from the Bank of America – just as they tried to roll out a $5 fee for something absurd and I decided enough was enough – to a local credit union.  I’d liked their sales pitch:  no fees, no minimums, etc.  Have had no issues with them since.  But then I hadn’t lost my card before.  At the BOA, if you lost your card, they (for a modest fee of course) would hand you a replacement to use until they could send you a new one.

But the Merrimack Valley Federal Credit Union did not.  You could call an 800 number and report the card lost or stolen, but you had to call the bank for the replacement card.  And the credit union had no weekend customer service.  I had to wait until Monday just to ask for a new card.

They sent you a new card of course (with the PIN number to follow a few days later to activate it), but there was no interim card.  You had to withdraw cash and the gods help you if you ran out of it before you could get back to a branch (which was local to the Merrimack Valley; no branches in Boston or Cambridge where you worked, and no extended hours for the commuters who worked in Boston) and withdraw more cash to tide you over.

And then you sat and waited.  And waited.  And waited for the U.S. Postal Service to deliver your new card.  Adding to the anxiety:  all of the mailboxes in our building had been torn out of the wall, and no matter how often you called, Royal Crest Estates, North Andover refused to repair them.  A bunch of us finally took pictures of the vandalism and reported Royal Crest to the Postmaster General after a full month of mail being left out in the open for anyone to steal.  And both my replacement card and pin number was coming via the U.S. mail.

It took 7 days for the card to arrive, which I couldn’t use without the PIN.  And the PIN number still hadn’t arrived ... 12 days after I discovered the card was missing.  I finally advised my office that I would be coming in late – I had to wait until a branch opened and withdraw more cash.

This I explained to the car, who has a puppy-tail wagging personality, as we drove to the bank.  “You have to help me cast a spell,” I told her, “to get my PIN today, so that I can call the doc and get you looked at.”  A minute later, a teller told me she could activate my card and give me a PIN number right then and there, so I wouldn’t need to wait for the mail.  Is my car awesome or what???

In gratitude, I filled up the tank to the brim, so she had a full belly, and she purred all the way to the train station.

The spiritual side of this:  my habitual reaction (and you’ve seen this in this blog!) is to rant about the “Sky Sadist”, berate myself for not paying attention and causing this mess and carry on in a state of rage.  I saw the first glimmerings of that back in the parking lot after detraining, an urge to blow up in fury.  Instantly – I stopped.  Remembered everything I had learned in class and in my readings.  Remembered I had power and was not a victim of anything.  Reminded myself that I was a witch and had the ability to protect myself.  Reminded myself that exploding in rage only sent a world of hurt out into the universe and solved nothing.  Took a deep breath.  Cast a spell of protection over the card – where ever it was – and over all my incoming mail that no one would touch any of it - and let it all go.

And am still amazed at having done that.  I guess I am changing, aren’t I?  And nothing unexpected happened as far as my bank account went.

Class:  So last night we worked with color; sending it out, immersing ourselves in it, and sorting through the sensations and associations of the different colors, and jotting down brief notes while in meditative trance – I’m lucky I could read my notes later; I did it with my eyes closed..  Later, I was comparing my associations with Christopher Penczak’s in The Inner Temple of Witchcraft.

I particularly liked his opening words in the entry for black:  “Black is a highly charged color.  People either love it or hate it ...”  I had jotted down, “I don’t like this.” as I was visualizing black bubbles raining down upon my head.  So I probably fall in the “hate it” category, although I’m not sure why.  I wear the color on occasion; have comforters with black in them; don’t ever recall thinking, “I really hate the color black!” – I just didn’t like the sensation of black surrounding me – at all.  Wasn’t all that fond of lime, orange or yellow.  Loved red, green, gold and indigo.  And of course the aquamarine, which immediately reminded me of the ripples of the lagoon surrounding Venice.

So it was interesting.  Next month:  auras and chakras!  Can’t wait for that one!

Am finding it fascinating to learn how John Dee equated poetry with hermetic magick … as he believed mathematics to be part and parcel of the same, the rhyme and meter of words could perform works of magick as well … I’d be interested in the examples he used.  (You know me and poetry …)  I suspect he was analyzing the earlier Greek poetry when he had this revelation, but I’d still like to read his thoughts on it.

And, Marsilio Ficino!  I didn’t start reading him as much as I read a quotation of his in D.P. Walker’s Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella (2000, The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, PA, p. 9), which is, despite the title, more of a Medieval and Renaissance history of the development of hermetic magick via humanist philosophers like Ficino, attached to the de Medici household.  I'm really enjoying reading the biographies of men like John Dee and Giordano Bruno from the same time period.  This book focused more on continental (specifically Italian) thought, which developed out of the rediscovery of Plato, among other Sophists.

The quotation described the vibrational power of music.

I immediately thought of (who else?) Piero Barone, whose voice sent such vibrations through my entire body the first time I heard it.  Don’t get me wrong, I love all sorts of music – my iPod is filled with days’ worth of music.  But hearing Piero’s voice the first time was the amazing, astonishing and (yes) erotic experience it was, as I might have said elsewhere, because it made me vibrate.

And not just my skull, or my teeth or anything like that ... but because it was as arousing an experience as (women would appreciate the analogy) sitting on a washing machine.  Now that may be a subjectively personal thing, meaning he may not have that type of impact on everyone, but whatever it was in my physical body that was in tune with the vibrations that his voice sent out began to vibrate with (for want of a better term) sympathetic magick ... I still vibrate helplessly when he sings.

I can’t be the only one ... I’ve heard women in audiences scream out loud when he hits some of those notes and holds them.  Now – maybe they’re just impressed with his lung power, and it isn’t though I can hunt them down afterwards and ask WHY they screamed in ecstasy just as he hit a certain note ... but if they’re letting loose with a shriek just as I’m having my “sitting on a washing machine” moment, and both happen on the same note?  I’m figuring there has to be some similarities somewhere.  In any event, I always thought I was weird, physically vibrating at the sound of his voice, but Marsilio Ficino certainly described the sensation to a “T” in this.  And I also loved the quotation because even in 1536, writers knew how to start out slowly and rhythmically, increase the tempo bit by bit, toss out images like "penetrate strongly", "flows smoothly" and then the climatic "seizes" and "claims" ...!  Actually, I should probably thank the translator as well, unless Walker translated it ... but thank you for this lovingly constructed observation, Marsilio! (pant, pant, pant).

“... Musical sound by the movement of the air moves the body; by purified air it excited the aerial spirit which is the the bond of body and soul; by emotion it affects the senses and at the same time the soul; by meaning it works on the mind:  finally, by the very movement of the subtle air it penetrates strongly; by its contemperation it flows smoothly; by the conformity of its quality it floods us with a wonderful pleasure; by its nature, both spiritual and material, it at once seizes, and claims as its own, a woman in her entirety.”
Ficino, Marsilio, Commentary on the Timaeus, 1536, (Paris, 1536).  Timaeus vel de Natura divini Platonis, Marsilio Ficino interprete: per Franciscum Zampinum recognita.  And, for the sake of issue continuity, I changed “man” to “a woman” in this.  So sue me.

But I have no intention of sharing this confession with the young tenor in question, trust me when I say this.  Ignorance is indeed bliss sometimes.  Let him labor under the false impression that women are just awed by his good looks and charm – or perhaps his lung power - lest he be grosseth out-eth.

(Besides, he’s feeling very holy right now; he just met the Pope, so this is hardly the time to explain to him in broken Italian what a woman sitting on a washing machine means.  I’d probably have to resort to gestures and moans and doing a pitiful “Meg Ryan in the diner” impression.  Some things are just better left unsaid, as they say.)

But back to Dee.  I’ve finished Peter French’s bio of him ... the bibliography and footnotes were awesome, by the way and bear investigating further ... for now, it’s on to back to Yates’ Giordano Bruno, which I’d begun but interrupted to read the Dee biography.

An Awesome Tarot, Piero Barone and Greek gods, and Strange Egyptologists

I don’t know who it was who said never to do a tarot card reading on yourself ... whoever it was:  pfffft!

I’m not really sure what the objection is ... if you’re shuffling the cards face down, it’s not as though you can pick and choose your favorite cards to toss into the spread.  Perhaps it’s because you tend to interpret cards in favor of your own best outcome and may not see things realistically, or something?

Nonetheless, as I didn’t have anyone around to do it for me, I pretty much had no choice but to toss Piero Barone singing “No Puede Ser” into my earphones for erotic inspiration (I mean, c’mon – he’s Piero Barone!  He  sings “No Puede Ser” like a Greek god!*  Who better for erotic inspiration, I ask you!) then ask a question and see what happened.  (*Fine.  You're right.  I have no idea if Greek gods sing like that.  They should, if they don’t, I’ll say that much.)

If you’ve been reading the last few entries, you’ve no doubt read my lovely experience with a certain spirit who dazzled me completely with a glance.  This particular lovely spirit is known for his gift at orchestrating memorable romantic erotic sizzling hot encounters ... I just could not figure out why someone (which is to say, moi) had to go through the entire Enochian catalog of nonsense just to ask him a simple question.  In my (albeit rather limited) experiences with him (2 at last count; 3 if he actually WAS the ankle grabber, which I doubt) – if he was comfortable enough to suddenly appear without all of the circle-drawing, sigil drawing and unpronounceable name yelling that Dee and Crowley thought necessary ... why did I have to go through all of that, myself?  (Although his sigil is rather attractive, I’ll give it that).

Basically, the question I asked of the cards was, “Is asking him to help me accomplish what I want to accomplish in my best interests?”  Truthfully, I was rather hoping he’d take on the task himself, but if not – help me to find what I was looking for.  The cards could just have easily answered with an obvious, “That would be the most disastrous thing you could possibly do!” – and as the gods can verify, I have had plenty of those types of spreads before.  So, I really didn’t anticipate the response before I shuffled and laid out the celtic cross.

Don’t you love it when you get an answer that looks like the equivalent of winning the World Cup singlehandedly?  Well, I suppose if you’re not a soccer fanatic, you probably wouldn’t know what that did feel like, but trust me, it’s awesome.  In order:  Prince of Disks, Ace of Wands, Hermit, Five of Cups, Ace of Disks, Knight of Wands, 4 of swords, Queen of Disks, Queen of Cups and The Fool.  (The 5 of cups, by the way represented my unconscious thoughts about it – I guess I was semi-expecting disappointment, wasn’t I?)  The only other non-court, the Four of Swords, was my attitude.

I couldn’t help it – I burst out laughing.  Way to undermine myself, isn’t it?  All of the outside influences were awesome.  YES!  GO FOR IT!  DO IT!!  TIME FOR A NEW ADVENTURE!  Well, ok, I’m paraphrasing somewhat.

One of the things I try to do with important readings is record them in the BOS, with interpretations, which takes a bit of work to pull together.  Still working on that, but in a very happy state of mind.  And I’ll let y’all know how it goes.

The Real Witches’ Year uses this day’s entry to discuss creating an astral temple.  In a way I already did that – although I neglected the part about filling it with intent and protecting it with blessings ... which will come in handy with the exercises on protection and talismans.  I won’t go into many more details, beyond saying it’s in Venice, where I find such inner peace, and near the space where I experienced one of my most powerful past-life regressions.  I even mentioned it in this blog a few years ago although at the time I was considering it a “dreamscape” more than an astral temple ... or maybe they’re the same thing, I’m not sure.  I certainly don’t use it regularly, although I should.

Meanwhile, The Witch’s Book of Days says, “Seek wisdom in water.  Gaze  into a cup or bowl.”  The Pagan Book of Days, somewhat similarly mentions this, the Nones of February, as a day honoring Tyche, Fortuna, Wyrd and (in another usurpation by our friends) St. Agatha – a day potent for fortune telling and all forms of divination.  Hmmmm.  Well, this was the day to shuffle the tarot deck, wasn't it?  Oh yes, and Between the Lights, which often provides lovely poetry and quotations chose instead to sing praises to the virtue of obedience.  Right.  I harrumphed and tossed that one aside pretty quickly.  Obedience is definitely not one of my stronger innate qualities.

Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853 – 1942), "commonly known as Flinders Petrie, was an English Egyptologist and a pioneer of systematic methodology in archaeology and preservation of artifacts." according to Wikipedia.

That may be, but he was unfortunately also a dues-paying member of the Plymouth Brethren ("Among other beliefs, the group emphasizes sola scriptura, the belief that the Bible is the supreme authority for church doctrine and practice over tradition...")

And yet this is the swashbuckler who thought he was eminently qualified to write Religion and Conscience in Ancient Egypt in 1898 ... filled with such sweet observations as, "We must feel that the greater part of mankind has ... systems of religion which may be a horror to us; ideas of gods which would be monstrous to us; their ways of life would make them flee into the fields from our dwellings; their systems of propriety would bring them into the police court; and their systems of morality would land them at once in the law court." (pages 12-13)

Actually, no – to me, that sentence was more horrifying than anything ancient Egypt ever produced, or maybe  that’s just me.  (Fling)  So much for Mr. Petrie.

Time to Make a Talisman ... and Zepar Turns His Head

I seem to be circling around again, revisiting past topics.  Reason:  the assignment this month for my class was reading and meditating about protective shields and talismans, and making charms.  I’m required to make a charm and infuse it with intent, which brought me back to the issue of beneficial, protective and wonderful spirits being laden with the false label of “demon” because,

(1) Renaissance-era christians didn’t translate the Greek designation “daemon” (i.e., spirit) properly – the rise of humanism during the Renaissance was inspired by the translation of ancient Grecian, Roman, Egyptian, near eastern etc., documents and papyri, and

(2) the sadistic viciousness of the Vatican and their inquisitors prevented anything other than circumspection and secrecy; magi from this time period – one eye fixed nervously on the fate of men such as Giordano Bruno - needed to easily defend their works if needed, and what better way than to point at their continued use of the wrong translation of the Greek word for spirit as proof of their genuine piety.  (“See?  I’m on YOUR side!”)

My perfect example has always been Enoch’s so-called “fallen angels” and the incubus/succubus who, I’ll be the first to admit, may include spiritual beings whose readings on the “Morality-O-Meter” may be a negative number, but you can’t assume that this is true of all of them, or even the vast majority of them.  If you read the lists of things these beings are known for, rarely do you find mention of murder and mayhem.  Primarily it’s answering questions and teaching … or helping you with love issues.  Hardly the sort to send you running for the nearest fire alarm.

It turns out that most of those are cheerful, friendly, loving, lusty spirits whose only interest is to make you happy.  REALLY happy.  Dancing-in-the-rain singing “On The Street Where You Live” happy.  Bad guys?  Hardly.  In fact, they’re better to have around than many human beings, when you think about it.  But because some christian heard the word sex and lost his or her marbles in prurient, squealing horror, they’re all painted with the same brush.

I truly believe that is the job of THIS generation to un-paint them, so to speak.  Most of them deserve to be revisited, with an open mind.

The sad part is that, following in the heels of these sexually repressed and thus sadly perverted christians are the (see my previous posts on this) wiccan twinkies with pursed lips (or as I like to call them, the church ladies with pointy hats) squealing “Witches shalt NOT do this and that!” and the guys (they always seem to be nerdy guys) who thought they’d rebel against mommy and daddy by reading Anton LaVey in the basement, not realizing that the only thing they’re accomplishing is reinforcing the christian rule-book in their creation of opposites.  In other words, they buy into the christian list of “demons” by invoking and worshiping them as demons.  None of them stop and question the judeo-christian point of view at all.  But then – as I said – they’re all in dark basements, sulking and whining and pretending to be bad boys.  Sad, really.

The same may be true of the retelling of the King Solomon mythology:  he obviously was quite familiar with magick and the use of invocation, and the story of him invoking all sorts of beings to help him build his temple is well known.  So, many of us are familiar with faux Solomon’s grimoire, chock full of beings with the word “demon” and “hell” written after them, whether or not they deserve such designations.  I personally think the vast of a lot of them don’t, because there is no indication that any of them ever did anything to deserve the label.

I mean, think about it:  we pre-christians (pagans, witches, streghone, whathaveyou) have no use for “satan”, “demons” and “hell”, although christians seem to enjoy wildly tossing the concepts about.  They should – they invented them and their emotional discards (the Anton LaVey crowd) continue to perpetuate them.  After all, it’s what they use to keep their followers in line, shaking pitifully in their boots and swooning at the theater unspooling of “The Exorcist”.  Extremely useful, true or not, when you’re in the business of scaring the crap out of people and then telling you their deity is “full of love”.  May be, but you’d never know it, listening to their apocalyptic banshee wailing, would you?

So.  Back to charms and talismans.  Protection.  I already have the cimaruta – so shiny and beautiful I love it! – so I’m not sure why I need to make another one.  Perhaps to prove that I know how.  Okay.

I sat around this weekend thinking about Sekhmet and Enki and Zepar and how to represent them on charms and talismans.  I have never figured out why Zepar in particular wound up with that label.  After all, HE never firebombed entire cities just because some creep behind its walls pissed him off, and the christian deity sure did.  HE never initiated and perpetuated the Spanish Inquisition, probably one of the more horrific and sadistic acts in christian history.  HE never ordered the Trail of Tears.  HE never did anything remotely as awful as christians have done, and he got the big “D” label?  Hypocrisy, anyone?  As far as I’m concerned, he isn’t one.

There is another reason I think that.  And that is because not that long ago I saw him turn his head and look at me.  Astonishing and unexpected mini-vision in the midst of a daydream about something else entirely.

He was sitting somewhere, leaning forward with his forearms arms resting on the tops of his thighs, listening intently to someone who was speaking to him.  I thought, “What the … who is that?” and then inhaled in shock and thought, “Why, that’s Zepar!”  At that, his head whipped to the right and I was absolutely rooted to the ground, immobilized by the intensity of his eyes.  He looked at me for about five seconds (during which time I felt as though I’d been scanned to the core and whatever secrets I thought I had inside of me were laid bare and trembling.  I didn’t know what to do).  Then – his eyes softened ever so slightly … and the corner of his mouth twitched as though he wanted to express amusement – but he didn’t – and then he turned his head back and the vision was gone.  I was as big a wreck after that unexpected moment as I was when that invisible someone closed his hand over my ankle.  Same someone? 

No, he didn’t strike me as the type to stay invisible and grab women’s ankles for his own entertainment.  He struck me as … POWER.  Coiled, exquisitely controlled, lion-esque power.  Not easily distracted but easily bored.  I also think he’s confident and perhaps even arrogant enough to send someone else – one of the men under his command for example – in his place, when he has no use for the conjuror.  He only allows himself to be summoned when HE wants to be summoned, for reasons all his own.

Embarrassingly enough, I panted for a good ten minutes after that happened, tingling from head to toe and back again.  Oh my goodness, what a good looking man!!

By the way, it wasn’t as though I had some image of him in my head before I saw him – I didn’t.  Only afterwards I went into Google and looked up “images of Zepar”, hoping someone else with artistic talent had seen him and managed to capture him:  not a single image in that mess of nonsense looked anything like him.  Not even REMOTELY.  Animae?  Hardly.  Everything in there came out of the minds of wide-eyed animae sketch artists and (as I said) pimply little boys with christian demons still lodged in their tighty whities.  Made me want to seriously apologize to him for the abject stupidity of the human race.  I recognized the red breastplate (which he did have), but the rest of that utter nonsense in Google images?  Not him.  Not the being who transfixed me with his gaze.  He’s awesome and wonderful and powerful.  Even if I never see him again, I will always remember the sensation.  Unbelievable.

Oh – and it just occurred to me that if some conjuror had one of those appalling images in their head when they summoned him – just, as I said, for his own amusement – I could see him saying, “OK, if that’s what you really want.” and showing up like that, just to scare the scrap out of them.  And then having a hearty brewski and riotous laugh-fest with the spirits under his command later, roaring his ass off at their panicked expressions.

Nope.  Those images aren’t the Zepar I saw.  None of them.  I almost want to say that his eyes are … or maybe they were reflecting something else I couldn’t see?  Dark purple-ish black?  Almost the color that an eggplant has – aubergine?  Except they had lights in them.  I do remember seeing infinitely deep purple-ish starry lights in them – yet another reason I was awed.  But they go right through you like a laser.  He can just root you to the ground with them.

I can’t tell you anything about his voice, because he never spoke – I’ve read somewhere that he has an unearthly voice, or an unusual voice.  But he didn’t speak, so I can’t confirm.

Needless to say, that – his sigil - was one of the ideas I immediately thought of, when we were asked to come up with protective talismans.  Will definitely try to sketch one – when I can get my hands to stop trembling.

[Addendum:  no, I haven’t seen him since I wrote that, and no, I haven’t heard his voice either.  But he did give me something of a revelation, by way of a question posed to me when I was thinking about him this morning.  The question wasn’t posed to me in words, so I’ll have to give my own voice to it; it basically appeared within me as though I’d had my crown opened, and the question poured in, full-blown, like watery light.  Basically it was this:  “WE ARE ALL ONE.  You KNOW we are all one.  How could I be something outside of that one unity?”  [*blink!*]  Eureka.  Answer was:  he couldn’t.  Wasn’t possible.  THAT’s why all of those Google images were so wrong, and so sad.  They were drawn by artists who still didn’t realize that WE ARE ALL ONE.  The Zepar they drew couldn’t look like the hideous, ugly or pitiable monsters they were drawing, because we would all look like that, if he did.

He may have a [far] more evolved skill set than I do – true – but ultimately he is cut from the same cloth of stardust and divine intent.  I experienced such a surge of joy when I realized that.

The occasional ones you find in grimoires with unpleasant skill sets are no different than the dumb criminals you see every day on reality TV – those boringly moronic nitwits who always get caught because they’re so mindlessly stupid.

Judeo-christian-islam adherents, of course, don’t believe that – they believe in a narrow patriarchal hierarchy and a divisiveness – their deity is outside of them, because they believe themselves to be full of “sin” or something outside of the “one unity”; they can’t see themselves as godlike.  (I would almost feel bad for them, if they weren’t so bent and determined to exterminate me).  Ah well.

Looping back into Lupercalia and Imbolc.  I don’t celebrate either one, Imbolc because I’m not Celtic, and although I’d be be more likely to celebrate Lupercalia, the Romans (pause while I ka-pooey on their collective memory, at least on this topic) sacrificed a dog and a goat for Lupercalia.  And I feel the same way about that awful stunt as I do about the judeo-christian insistence that they are superior to all animal life and therefore perfectly justified in killing them with machine guns.  Personally, I’d rather sacrifice a weekend hunter, his John Deere cap AND his cooler of Budweiser than an animal, I don’t care what anybody says.  Really.  No loss.  Just sacrifice the bleep and leave his severed head in the middle of the woods - like the Blair Witch project! – to scare the wits out of any other hunter that wanders by.  Heck, it would be worth it just to watch the lot of them run screaming out of the woods, weeping hysterically after spying that severed head in its John Deere cap, tripping drunkenly over their rifles and shooting themselves in the nuts.

Ooooh ... having a crabby day, are we???

Well .... yeah.  Sorta.  But it would still be funny.  In any event, this is historically the day when everyone celebrated the return of the Sun – the light – because now is about the time one is eminently aware that the days are getting longer.  Heck, I notice it just taking the commuter rail home at night.  The sun has returned!!  So one celebrates joyously.  The christians – as always – unable to pull together an original thought in their heads at all, swiped this one from us pagans and strega as well and called it Candlemas.  This is yet another stolen holiday, but most christians today are either too stupid to know it, or too vicious to care.

The other talisman I considered was Enki’s.  Zecharia Sitchin aside, I really like Ea/Enki as a protector God.  So, given the christian habit of announcing that every deity or spirit but theirs is demonic, I went and pulled a .pdf copy of The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia, by Reginald Campbell Thompson of the British Museum (1904).  Semi-interesting, if you can ignore his ironic references to indigenous cultures as “savages”.  I say “ironic” because while he finds the “words of power” used by Assyrian or Babylonian “priests” perfectly acceptable, the same words of power used by others, is termed, “the customs of many savage tribes”.  At some point, you struggle against the urge to also call him a “moronic pinhead” and stop reading.  Ahhh, the joyful and incessantly clueless stupidity of 1904.  I wonder if I can find a spell to resurrect him just to slap him senseless.  Hmmm.