Step from myself into myself

—Art by John Reinhard Weguelin—

RITUALS

I have done rituals to invoke/evoke entities, initially to learn the basic skills for magic. I have continued rituals for the experience of connection and possession. But after the first few weeks in magical instruction, I stopped doing rituals for a specific purpose. Then I stopped doing rituals at all.

This has been for unfortunate reasons, and for wise reasons.

Unfortunately, I have a fear that I am broken and will feel nothing. “It won’t work for me.”

I also fear what I must feel. The yucky feelings I must push through to open to deeper experiences, the tangled dark places of damage and hurt left by my father’s wrath.

But silence and the lack of magical “movement” is also wise. The deities have prompted me over and over to not use words. And I am finally realizing that this is not just a momentary prompt to remain silent. I have finally realized that this is a profound teaching about my process. The particular means of my particular progress.

OFFERING

And now. I do no explicit rituals at my altar. I chant no enns, say no words.

Instead, I offer.

I picture myself in an Egyptian temple, one where multiple gods are honored. I choose this image as a time and place where temples were attended to by dedicated priests and priestesses.

I am one of those who tend to the temple daily, a priestess. I enliven the temple with my activities, maintaining a place that connects the mundane and subtle worlds, and strengthens the cherished connection with the deities of the temple.

I offer what I manifest and make real. My temple, a sacred space. My body clean, scented, and adorned. My altars cleaned and arranged just so. A space made and kept conscious, and sacred.

I offer sacrifice. Food offerings. Presence and time. Japa mala (I repeat the mantra “Lucifer”).

I offer blood sacrifice. A few drops of blood on each deity’s sigil. This is the main sacrifice of the temple. An offering of my life substance, an enlivening substance with which to animate the representations and presence of the deities.

I offer that most ancient of divine sensibilities and acknowledgements of obligation: honor. I honor the deities. All of the offerings convey deep gratitude and praise, a recognition of source. This is vital, and continues in each moment, with each activity.

I offer that which attracts the deities. The beauty of the altars, the special fire of the candles. The warmth and divine scent of incense. I wave the incense eleven times clockwise in front of each deity and other altar elements, enlivening the altar, the sigils, and images, making them chaitanya, living representatives of the divine. On special days, I also wave a candle before each deity.

I offer my body. For possession. For possession, in which my divinity is developed by divine presence. I receive the bliss of energetic transformation, transformation of my consciousness, and my subtle being via chakra work, sexual energy work, the balancing and healing of my subtle body and mind.

I offer my consciousness, the most valuable of offerings. I focus. I open. I trance. I meditate. I open myself to what is now. I seed my consciousness with the willingness to co-evolve with the deities that support my ascent. This intention and purpose—channeled into action—is what draws them to me.

Finally, I offer my full presence as meditation. This is my spiritual practice. My activity and technique for achieving more presence in the now, more clarity of thought and purpose which I carry forth through my waking and sleeping hours.

And so. This is how I keep my temple now. No words. No rituals beyond the lighting of the candles, the tidying of the altar, the waving of the incense.

This is how I create the place, the very certain place where I stand now, ready to find my way. Not with the rituals of others. Not with rituals that are like the rituals of others. Not even my own version of known rituals.

I have no rituals. They are waiting to be born.

I wait until I step from myself into myself.

I am silent. Aware now of this, of myself and my potential, carried inside of my being in the womb from which I will be born at last.

And so I wait. I wait to be born.

All over the world, there are those who are evolving with me, our old lives winding down to nothing.

And so I wait.

I wait until I step from myself into myself, a new life. Only then can I can proceed.

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Twilight in the Underworld