Little Bird and the Temple in a Green Place

It’s midnight and there is way too much H.P. Lovecraft going on in the living room for me to focus on a full-sized post. Here’s three disparate yet related chunks to fill in the gaps.

Increased Power

It’s a bit early to say, but I have been seeing some serious improvements since I added the new power collector to the Prosperity Web. The addition made a big impact on my workflow, and it also made me reconsidering my schedule. I had been holding a Temple service on Wednesday which took a few hours. After I added the power collector, I started to feel like the practice wasn’t working – taking half a day off in the middle of the week left me pressed for time both in the Temple and while working before heading up there. So far I’ve decided to move it to Sunday, that weird day that isn’t fully the weekend but still isn’t part of the work week. I grew up in a vaguely agnostic household, so I’ve never particularly associated Sundays with anything specific. Tomorrow will be my first attempt at a Sunday Temple service – last week was so in flux that I got a free pass and made up for it over the week.

The Year Of The Root

Cosmic Purple Carrots (courtesy of Pick Me Yard)

I’m not sure where my love for the mystery of root vegetables developed. I never enjoyed eating them, especially not potatoes or rutabagas, as a child. I think it developed later, and I know that it really turned the corner into Important when I picked up a 25 cent copy of Jitterbug Perfume at a thrift store in rural Georgia because it mentioned Pan on the back cover. The lavish treatment of the beet root set all those dormant seeds to germination in my brain. I’ve written about it before – namely the Underground Heart, but with the arrival of the rabbit came the wild and tame carrots and with the fox came the twisted fingers of dandelion root.  This year will be the Year Of The Root. The thick and heavy clay soil that kept my root seedlings at weak seedlings all summer long has been circumvented this year with some clever containers and custom-blended soil. Last year was my introduction to the World Beneath The Soil as I traveled through dens and caves with my Council of friends, but this year will involve a lot more deep-delving.

Strong Foundations

See, it all ties together, roots = foundations in some way. I’ve been pushing ahead in a lot of areas of my personal practice, but it has only served to highlight the areas that I missed out on during my first few months and years delving into the language of the spirits. I’m not quite a crooked Tower, but I’ll end up that way if I don’t stop to rebuild some of my important foundations. I’ve decided to focus on the basics that I need to grow in the disciplines that excite me the most. For example, I’ve managed to take a few successful journeys to other places, but my most basic meditation skills have atrophied since I stopped a daily practice. I can get to the right brain state with the right triggers of ritual sounds and sights, but I need to be able to get there without it as well. I’m going to crafting my own sort of training program to stretch and strengthen my mental and energetic muscles. I’ll be posting about some of it once I work out the details in the event someone else is interested in the same kind of development. I briefly considered pulling a training program from one of the thousands of books recommended by everyone in the occult blogosphere, but I already know I don’t have the discipline to follow a program not directly related to my goals.

Ryohei Hase

The Rabbit was technically the first of the spirits to come to me in the role of a guide or co-conspirator, but didn’t become fully articulated and separate from the general swirl surrounding me until after the arrival of Le Loupe.

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Ever since we came back from Alchemy, where we sent up sigils and evocations in the explosive Effigy Burn powered by fireworks and explosions, the cold winds have been driving us forward to Spring-like levels of busyness. Participating in the Mutagenesis ritual had dire effects on our plans.

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The summer shut down so many of my normal urges and interests. Some kind of funky, vaguely depression-shaped fugue took over on most days, aside from the points of great success and fun (like Whigg Meadows and teaching a workshop and swimming in cold water). My drive to move around or get crafty definitely suffered. Since summer’s heat and driving sense of SUN EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM IT broke on Labor Day, it’s been cloudy and breezy and I’ve felt like walking through the woods and making things with my bare hands instead of a keyboard again.

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