Triggers

I have to say that in retrospect I am gaining a lot more from Silver while I review her work with mature eyes. I will argue with some of her exercises, I personally would not teach the same way. When she wrote out her Triggers assignment as one of physical gestures, this to me is a salute.

I have always stylized my movements and gestures after the etiquette of a knight. Not very feminine of me, when I visualize my motions I am usually holding an athame or a staff. To think of simple motions for empty hands. Its hard to describe as most of the actions and energy through visualization. And I'll be the first to admit that I am much more graceful in my own mind than in reality.

My gestures in reality my hand is tilted to the side, like a blade. The motion is dependent on my goals. More of a salute than a trigger.

From the Heart

Silver wants me to write or memorize a ritual soliloquy that I can use faithfully in rituals. This is hard, most Pagan poems are simply too long for me to feel comfortable reciting them, and invariably I end up tripping over my words. Its easier to recite Shakespeare when I'm out with friends. So writing something like that, that I can memorize became my best option.

But I took time to come over Pinterest. I searched Google and Bing, and I pawed through my books. In the end it was already there. Words that I spoke during my dedication:

"I am the Breath of Life.
I am the Whisper of Death.
I am the Light in the Darkness.
I am a Child of the Old Gods...."

Triggers and Salutes

Silver asked that I write a full ritual featuring my favorite comedian, honestly I don't have a favorite comedian. This lesson was to help you learn how to relax when things don't go perfectly. For my best friends 15th birthday, her mom got a bunch of us together performed what by now is probably a famous ritual. The Chocolate Ritual was hilariously fun, and I would recommend it for just the purpose Silver had in mind.

This is a Gif of the Circle Cast spell, Time of Legend. It gives me +25% to all attack spells.

I Blade myself and its the Athame.

I can summon Minions in lieu of the elements, or trap my opponents.

A friend and I once recited an entire ritual while running a dungeon.

Ancestral Sacred Space

Moving on in our little adventure Stirring that Magick Cauldron at long last. Having constructed my own space I feel charged for the discussion of the people of the past who constructed the sacred space that we so admire now. If the work we put into our much smaller endeavors deserves respect, the great sites of those who came before us deserve everything that we have to give. 

While Silver discusses leaving offerings and meditations, which are great. These things all depend on you knowing where these sacred places can be found. Some places are well documented by historians and archaeologists like Stonehenge or New Grange. Places well known because they were baptized in blood like Little Big Horn, The Alamo, Gettysburg, and Auschwitz. Then you have places that are documented but not well known, sacred sites that have been used going back almost forever. My example is Danger Cave in Utah, I have lived in Utah for a grand total of almost 15 years, the first time I heard of Danger Cave was two weeks ago; if you look it up you will find that there is archaeological evidence that Danger Cave has been used as a gathering place by early man for thousands of years. Danger Cave is considered by natives to be a place of power. Now if I were a cartographer I would take a stab at mapping my lay lines, but I'm not.

Following my reading of this section, I had a few memories from documentaries, where coins left at Bath and Stonehenge were lodged into rocks, these offerings were placed with little respect, and the historians credit them with causing some serious damage and aiding erosion at these sacred sites. So I ask you my friends, when coming and going from these sites please be respectful, kick up a little dirt and bury your offering, toss it in a well or stream, hang it from a tree branch.

It is a personal practice of mine to fill a small travel cosmetics container with dirt from these sites and leave my offerings in place of the dirt. The dirt that I take stays in the small container and after my pilgrimage is completed it comes home to my altar.

Meditating at these sites is an uncommon luxury. So I prepare for the trip, usually weaving a friendship bracelet, witches ladder or selecting an item to bring with me. I do my meditations before I go so that I don't spend half my trip looking for a cooperative corner.

The Completed Altar

My outdoor sacred space was completed in time for the Blue Moon on the 31st, and what little work has been done there has had a "presence" about it. You have the Altar, on either side of it is a pair of Tiki Torches, on the wall are sun and moon plaque style bird feeders (offering dishes). Then on the laundry post we have a cast iron bird bath (a sunflower with a bird perched on it) that we coated with heat resistant black paint and hung to act as a censor, then a sun-moon-star wind chime, on the main post secured with a nine knot charm (witches ladder) is a broom from a craft store, then the pentacle-triple goddess knot-Solomon's seal chime, and the final chime is a unicursal hexagram.

You'll see that there is no statuary on the altar, no dishes and no crystals. This is to allow the altar to be dressed  as needed, and to protect our ritual items from wild-life and weather. This is also because until the 5th of this month I have been abstaining from using my tools.

This post is in the wake of some personal circumstances that have made it difficult for me to be productive about much of anything, and unfortunately this restriction is impacting my personal studies.

I also want to stress the amount of work involved in the construction of or creation of items to be used in magick. The effort involved is an offering to the Gods and in fact acts as fuel for all work that is performed when making use of the area.