Damiana Tea, Round Two

Ahhh ... back to the Damiana Tea.  As you’ll recall (or perhaps not) I had started an experiment with the Damiana Tea (and not the Damiana steeped in liquor); Peanut died the next day and that was the end of the experimenting for a while.  I decided to try again last night.

Let’s see: this morning, my car refused to start, I missed a meeting I’m supposed to be leading, the AAA guys was late so I missed the third train, when he arrived the car started without difficulty (WTF??!!??), I misread the train schedule and missed the fourth train, the refrigerator light just went out, and my affirmations so far are a complete disaster.  Why is it that all hell breaks loose after I field test the Damiana Tea?

Example:  I’m driving out of the apartment complex to the train station and reach the intersection of roads where school busses pick up passengers.  A bunch of mothers are “supervising” their kids, and by “supervising” I mean standing in the middle of the road babbling with each other, ignoring the spawn altogether and setting an excellent example for the kiddies on how to stay out of the path of oncoming cars.  I’m not the only driver thoroughly pissed off at this gaggle of idiot mothers; I am (probably) the only driver who decided to start doing positive affirmations that morning:

The other drivers are honking, yelling out of their car windows at the women and in general being really annoyed at them.  I’m affirming:  “I react to challenging and stressful situations with peaceful tranquility.  I react to challenging and stressful situations with peaceful tranquility.  I react to challenging and stressful situations with peaceful tranquility.  I react to ... GET THE &*^& OUT OF THE ROAD, YOU IDIOT, NARCISSISTIC C*NT!  WHAT ARE YOU, STUPID??  GREAT EXAMPLE FOR THE KIDDIES, COW!”

Yeah, I’m doing great.  That doesn’t excuse the Idiot Mothers of Royal Crest Estates, North Andover, Massachusetts – all of whom should be herded into “Responsible Parenting Remedial Re-Education School” and taught stern lessons in how to act like responsible parents ... as it’s obvious none of them know how to do that.

Meanwhile, Mr. Signpost made me feel even smaller and more useless with his post:  “The last bigotry of the open-minded is their bigotry against those they see as closed-minded.”  OK, FINE.  Guilty as charged.  Actually, I suspect I have even more “bigotries” than that (see above), but I’m having a hell of a time breaking those.

But none of this tells you how the Damiana Tea worked.  Awesomely.  And I have two weeks minus one day to go with the field testing, which makes me suspect that by the end of the two weeks I’ll be ... I don’t know – in bad shape?  In good shape?  Wide-eyed and sleepless?  Jittery and jumpy?  Rubbing against trees?  Who knows?  But I basically had the same issue I had last time:  one hour later, I found myself fantasizing about you know who and why and suddenly catching myself doing it.  Looking at the clock.  Bursting into laughter.  Stuff is great.  I wish I know where Enchantments got it from, so I could give someone the Recipe-credit.

Blood Moons, Witch's Pyramid and Will I Won't I Will I Won't I Will I Go To Salem?

I’ve now de-evolved to the point where I lost track of yet another day …five days ago I could have sworn it was Thursday …. Nope!  Friday.

 From Damien Echols (“Mr. Signpost”) (whose tweets are so encouraging:  “The universe is going to take you to a level you have never seen before. Amazing things will find you,” and OMG, I believe him completely!) described the full moons which lit up the sky over the last several nights: “Tonight's full moon is called the Blood Moon or the Hunter's Moon. The only one I love more is the full moon of December.  In November it's called the Dark Moon. In December, it's the Cold Moon.”

And he’s right, today was the Blood Moon, which I wasn’t able to see until I was driving to the commuter rail lot in the morning.  What a greeting!  Initially, I could see only the reflected light behind a long line of clouds, when suddenly the moon burst forward from behind those clouds, and it felt so like a happy greeting!  I could only think how lovely it will be when I can free myself from the basement apartment and actually see the beauty of the moon from my windows ... or from my backyard!  Or front yard!  What an incentive to continue packing with anticipation.  Moon water!  Cleansing things!  Moon tonics!  Spells!  Possibilities are endless.

Speaking of Damien, he offered tarot sessions for people near Salem; I responded, “Sure, I’m near Salem”, before it hit me that maybe he meant I should COME to Salem.  Said, “D’oh!” because you all know how desperately I don’t WANT to go to Salem.  (The Massachusetts one.  New Hampshire one is fine.)  I was right in the midst of hoping he (or his rep) would say, “Ooops, changed my mind!” so I wouldn’t need  to show up for the session crying hysterically.  Instead, the response was that his next appointment was a workday – yay!  I’d forgotten that I was probably one of the few witches who worked first shift and couldn’t sync up with anybody, even if I had no problem meandering up the road to Salem.

Personally – given how thoroughly and near magically he whipped all the pain out of my back with just a hand clasp – I think his tarot reading would be awesome.  I just can’t bring myself to go back to Salem, Mass since my brother died.

They say (regarding affirmations) that they should be positively charged (“I have a beautiful, flawless body!”), as opposed to the negatively charged (“I hate these ugly warts on my toes and want to banish them.”)  And no, I do not have any warts, ugly or otherwise, on my toes, I’m just sayin’.  I flip through our current textbook (Christopher Penczak’s, The Inner Temple of Witchcraft, now dog-eared, stained and completely un-re-sellable, as if I would anyway) using his affirmations as templates for mine.

As he said, you must know what you want before you can make it happen.  The first affirmation you know as well as I do, because this blog started out as a Search for a Soul mate up until April of 2010 when I was riding a bus that was broadsided by a jeep, and nothing was ever afterward the same.  The Search for a Soul mate came to a screeching halt as I went through all of the agony, the surgery, the side-effects and the aftermath, followed by the deaths of everyone I loved.  And I still haven’t recovered (see entries on screaming leg cramps).  So I went from trying to envision the love from a human soul mate coming right around the corner to realizing I still wanted a soul mate, desperately, but I needed to re-envision him in a big way.

I needed a lover that could do everything a human lover could do without the pain.  Inadvertent pain, obviously, but just hitting the apex of that roller coaster and momentarily freezing in place while I  enjoyed the ride was enough to disable me for a week.  All of the muscles and tendons of my upper legs, lower legs and feet muscles cramped and twisted so violently and for so long I would leave teeth marks in pillows, trying not to scream so horribly the neighbors would dial 9-1-1 and I would have to explain myself to the friendly neighborhood gendarmes.  (That would be the armed and dangerous North Andover police swat team, to those of us who don’t live in France.  Which I don’t.  And I’m not even French, so I have no idea why I said that.)

The second affirmation?  No, not releasing my sudden strange affinity for faux French affectations, like, you know, “gendarmes” and “faux” instead of “fake”, but ridding myself of an emotion I seem to have in abundance.  You might have guessed that one, too, just reading this blog.  Releasing the anger.

No doubt you’ve seen the anger I hold for really stupid, narcissistic and obnoxious women and really evil corporations (not to mention dumb twinkie witches who can’t spell), but you may not have seen the self-directed anger, which I also seem to have in excess.

Now to think of a third affirmation. while my mala beads wind their way through the post.  A WCI classmate wisely suggested tying knots in a string (there will be a pause while I try to figure out how long it would take me to tie 108 knots after losing track of the number after every third knot). 

Okay, maybe I do need a memory retention affirmation.  I had actually purchased a skein of yarn to make a witch’s girdle (not the same thing as a Playtex girdle, sorry) and still haven’t managed to find the time to do it, so I’m guessing having someone else count up and connect the mala beads is probably a better idea.

Later:  noshing on a BLT (with yummy sweet Vidalia onion and kosher dill slices in there) on a sandwich-sized toasted (as Americans would say) English muffin, and as the British would say, crumpet, and the last of the Vina Temprana 2012.

I’m contemplating, as I nosh, on the origins of the “Witch’s Pyramid”, which seems odd, as I’m wondering why witches don’t more respectfully refer to it as an “Egyptian pyramid”, as that seems to be where the concept originated.

Some theorize that the theory goes back to the hieroglyphics on the Sphinx – I have yet to find a citation for that – others from 1896; still others think it originated far more recently, in 1981.

As I said, the Sphinx hieroglyphics source has a big question mark after it.  In Transcendental Magick, Its Doctrine and Ritual, written in 1896 (Arthur E. Waite, trans), Eliphas Lévi wrote:  "To attain the Sanctum Regnum, in other words, the knowledge and power of the Magi, there are four indispensable conditions - an intelligence illuminated by study, an intrepidity [dauntlessness: resolute courageousness, fearlessness] which nothing can check, a will which cannot be broken, and a prudence [the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason; sagacity or shrewdness in the management of affairs; skill and good judgment in the use of resources; caution or circumspection as to danger or risk] which nothing can corrupt and nothing intoxicate. . .” [Definitions added by me].
Source:  http://hermetic.com/osiris/onthepowersofthesphinx1.htm

I suspect the four conditions began with Levi in 1896 and were then given the “concept or model of the Pyramid” in 1981 by Clifford Bias, Spiritualist minister and founder of Universal Spiritualist Association and Ancient and Mystical Order of Seekers (A.M.O.S.). 

In his publication, The Ritual Book of Magic, Bias writes:

"The Magus, the Theurgist, the True Witch stand on a pyramid of power whose foundation is a profound knowledge of the occult, whose four sides are creative imagination, a will of steel, a living faith and the ability to keep silent."  Already the four “sides” have changed in significant ways:  we now have “creative imagination”, “a living faith” and “the ability to keep silent” – all of which in no way resemble the first list. Supposedly, the four indispensable foundations of magic weren’t attached to the physical diagram of the pyramid until 1981. 

Christopher Penczak has a terrific diagram of the concept in The Inner Temple of Witchcraft, but here’s another one.  The advantage to this one is the Latin (Italian), although the Italian is a little different (i.e., volere instead of ‘velle’) and the accompanying symbols.

Penczak’s version of this has the elements:  To Dare=Air, To Keep Silent=Water, To Know=Earth and To Will=Fire.  At the apex:  Wiccan Rede=Spirit.

This is probably one of the few times I haven’t gone ballistic at “Wiccan Rede”, which I believe to be wholly invented by Gerald Gardner and the furthest thing possible from “traditional” unless you follow Gardner’s beliefs religiously.  As I said, I have no problem with Gardnerians; I do have problems with people presenting Gerald Gardner’s invented stuff as “traditional” when it isn’t. 

The TOW is far more Celtic than I am; so .... let’s just say my affirmation to stop going ballistic at everything is working even before I started using it.  Woo-hoo!!

On the Cusp of the Hunter's Moon and Shrines to Piero Barone's Nude Torso

You know, if I were the whining sort  (and I’m sure I’m not!) (okay, you can all stop laughing now), I would swear I was still being blocked as far as accomplishing anything magickal goes.  October is turning into one of those months so crammed full of conflicting obligations I’m nigh close to flinging things at walls in frustration.  Week long business trips, moving, packing, high school reunions, FDA inspections (again!), WC classes that get me home at 10:30 at night, followed by four hours of sleep, followed by an FDA presentation, broken clothes washers, workshops, car engine lights going off, doctors insisting I make appointments with them NOW, a dentist demanding $900 to finish a root canal, my credit union’s online banking system crashing so I couldn’t pay my home refurbishing contractor, my landlord stealing my rent twice … did I forget anything? 

Oh yeah.  The evil slumlords from Royal Crest Estates (AIMCO) left another note on my door when I came home last night, “Right in the middle of everything else, we decided to perform another home inspection invasion TOMORROW, and we’re hoping you’ll be so flummoxed by having another one scheduled a mere two months after the previous one that you’ll give up, go to work, and leave us to pillage and steal from your home at our leisure.”  Well, they ARE evil, doing something this evil is right up their alley.  In Worcester, they heisted a book of checks off a bookcase, so apparently, they perform this thieving scam all over Massachusetts.  Who knows what they could steal in a home full of packed boxes.  I sent a shrieking note to my boss.  Fortunately, and unlike AIMCO, she’s a decent human being.

But the most important pathways for me in all of this relentless chaos?  Studying, learning, practicing and getting into the new house to build altars and sanctuaries and peaceful places to learn  everything, watching the sun move through the sky and planning herb gardens for the spring, embroidering sigils … so many things.  And yet I seem to continually be running in place and hitting brick walls … it’s frustrating.

I decided to consult my tarot deck, the Crowley Thoth, asking the rather open-ended, “WTF?”, or more specifically, why are all these critical dates and events converging on and conflicting with one another?  I need peace and tranquility, I need the ability to meditate, calm my inner voice, learn valuable skills, and everything seems to be deliberately blocking that, forcing me to juggle appointments, run from one event to the next, worry as to whether I’ll make it on time.  Doing that makes me forgetful and upset.  And these convergences are SO deliberate – really, there’s no other word for it – I want to know why.  What is the purpose of this relentless chaos?  Good example:  this vicious home invasion by Royal Crest Estates/AIMCO every two months means that I now need to cancel a desperately needed doctor’s appointment on Monday, cancelling a flu shot and new scrips for medication because I can’t go two full days without pay.  And I NEED the flu shot; rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes makes you susceptible to all sorts of things.  This is a return to the days of the Sky Sadist.

Background, current situation, future state:  Emperor – Hanged Man (R) – Prince of Disks.

Emperor:  “Thus, this card indicates that you have a strong desire to see your ideas manifested on the physical plane in the form of material gain or accomplishment. An opportunity will arrive that could be the foundation of a very successful future.”  From the biddy tarot .

“Hanged Man usually indicates a lack of ability to help oneself through independent action. This energy is arrested and awaiting judgment. With this card, there is no avenue for the will to regain control until the situation has passed.  This represents a good time to be philosophical, to study and meditate upon the position you find yourself in, and form resolutions for the moment you become free again.”  From the Old English Tarot: 

Prince of Disks:  ... the Prince of Disks is slow in following and developing his plans and ideas, yet he is steady and unwavering - once on his path, he is going forward towards his goal.  Great.  (*sigh*)

Second WC1 class yesterday, in the middle of the FDA inspection and on the cusp of this sadistic and evil AIMCO Home Invasion.  The third class, next month, falls on the day when the new director pays a visit to Cambridge, which is the same day as a court appearance in Lawrence, wherein I will attempt to regain a house full of stolen property!  What the …?  This is so consistent, it has begin to veer back into “find me some chicken entrails, I have to kick the gypsy curse” territory.

Sorry, fleeing chicken!  Just joking!  I really don’t want your entrails!

I discovered that I do really well on guided meditations; much better than solo ones.  We were learning to focus on shapes and colors; tastes and smells … the teacher had led us all calmly and quietly into visualizing an orange against a white background, peeling it, and tasting it.  It was going surprisingly well … when all of a sudden, a delectable, delicious and verrrry recognizable nude male torso appeared without warning in my field of vision and *pop*!  The orange disappeared in a splash of juice and all that was left was me, breathing heavily and thinking, “Oh yessss, peel me one of THOSE grapes, please.”

Zepar!!!  (“Zepar is a Great Duke, who tries to seduce women, and if requested by them, he can change his shape into that of their beloved man” ... see an entry or so ago.)  You know, this could be very useful, indeed.  This one, this one, this one, this one!!!

I don’t know how he could live up to the perfect prototype that is Piero Barone (all this – and that voice!), but ... ohhhhh myyyyy.  Please, please, please do try!  I realize that fortunately, every woman has a different and subjective view of “the perfect male body”, but for me, this is it.  This is the paragon of male perfection.  Given a choice, I would have constructed an anatomically correct version of this one from clay, fired it up, and built a shrine to it in my living room.  After all, I know it was the Sicilian Greek Euhemerus who theorized that all gods originated as super-stellar human beings, like my awesomely sexy Piero, here ...

OMG!  I can’t stop lusting after Piero Barone even while I’m trying to visualize an orange!  I definitely need to get my trains of thought under control, here.  Arrgh.  The Hunter's Moon is tomorrow night, and I'm wondering what sort of spells work well with a full moon so close to the veil.  If I could find a "learn to focus!" full moon spell, I'm all over it.

Affirmations.  As part of my homework assignment this month, I have to select and repeat three of them.  In repetitions of magical numbers, like  3, 9, 33, 108.  The assignment brought up another term I’d never heard before:  mala beads.  Like rosary beads, used for counting affirmations, mantras, prayers, although the mala beads were invented first, by a millennium or so or three … or four … or maybe more.  Went and looked them up.  Tibetan. Japanese.  Hindu.  Traced way back to BC, the first known ones.  Used for meditation.  Just went online and found a rose quartz one I really liked.  And so, now that the mala beads are on their way I need to select three affirmations to recite.  My choice.  This may take a while.

Affirmations.  I hear Billy Burke as Charlie Swan snapping an irritated and disgusted, “You want me visualize,” at his daughter when she asked him to picture her in a healthy state.  But after class was over, I discovered that there were components of “instant magic” that actually worked.  One was creating a trigger from within a deeply meditative state and using it later.  I questioned whether or not it would work right away, although the psychological principle behind the act was sound.  I just didn’t expect it to work so quickly.  I tried it the next day, and was astounded when it worked.

And this is why you should probably not use it in an elevator the first time – I can no longer recall why I felt I needed it!  So much for the spell journal!

Find a place of power in nature.  That was a no-brainer!  The rock in my back yard in Seabrook.  The first time I saw it I gasped in awe of its size and beauty and radiating tranquility.  I adore that rock – although technically speaking, it’s more of a large boulder than a rock!  I need to have Dana devise some way of (gracefully) climbing up on the rock (when I tell you it’s huge, I’m not kidding) so that I can meditate up there.  But can I get back to it before the next class?  Who knows?