Sacred Journey Part 2

Everyday Sacred.

“Don’t be satisfied with the stories that come before you; unfold your own myth.” Rumi

“Honoring begins at Home.  Start with yourself, your family, your home, and your tools.  All are sacred.  If you have only been an armchair practitioner till this point-interested in magick, but never taking the leap because you weren’t close enough to the natural forces- then get up off the sofa and open your eyes…Open the door, walk down the street, and let the adventure begin.”  Penczak, xvi, Introduction to City Magick.

If where you are is the only place you can currently go, you can still visit the holy places where you are.  There is still the world behind the world. (“…we are all strangers in this world, and that part of the elusive wonder of travel is that during those moments.., we are forced to face that truth.” Cousineau)  Everything has a spirit of place, and these can be met, talked with.. The world will meet you where you are.  Set out with the intention to see behind the daily scenes. Pick the itinerary path for your vision walk.  You will also be lightly trancing, so pick fairly “safe” places.  Wear the gear that makes you feel magick, but also I find it helpful to pick unobvious things, to keep interaction with curious bystanders to a minimum.  I have jewelry that I enchant for various purposes.  Start with a prayer to your favorite Gods and guardians, and get your aura armor up.

I also play my soundtrack on my mp3 player as I go.  Get into a light trance, and let your eyes slide off physical things to see if you can see beyond, through, around them.  Your eyes are not quite meeting the details of the world.  I see the energy on things, or people, and get more impressions from people than usual about them, little glimpses of their possible lives.  I see glimmers of “other” things/people. I get other impressions if I touch things, a taste of their energy life.  Sometimes I like to pause as I go, and pick up souvenirs of the trip (“To be touched, we must, in turn, touch.” Cousineau), take pictures, write a little bit of my impressions as I go along.  I like to bring presents,  edibles for wildlife, sharing water with a plant, cleaning up other people’s discards…When you get to the place you are going, reintegrate into yourself. I ground, usually by touching the ground, reminding myself who I am in the everyday world, and thanking Everybody who kept me safe while I travelled.  Be a pilgrim of the sacred where you are, as well as out and about. 

“Reading old travel books or novels set in faraway places, spinning globes, unfolding maps, playing world music, eating in ethnic restaurants, meeting friends in café’s whose walls hold soul-talk of decades—all these things are part of never-ending  travel practice…”Cousineau .  Keep romancing the World, and it’s likely it will come to see you if you can’t get away to see it.

“Hymn to the Local Gods”- Shriekback

Where are the bones and the flowers?
Where are the shrines to the local gods?
They never write now or ring us
Whatever happened to the local gods?
What are their names? Where do they live now?
Where do we go to light a candle to them now?

They held the soul of the city
The streets were bright with the local gods
The days were sweet with their meanings
The nights were vivid with the local gods
The day they left we never saw their going
We woke one morning and the world was less than it had been

In the canals and the wastelands
Up in the spires, under the flyovers
Still you can see, with the right eyes,
The shining presence of the local gods
Stand in the silence you can hear them whisper
Hearing their laughter echo in the steel and stone

So leave a fire in the window
Pour the wine under the underpass
Let's all go down to the river
We'll go swimming with the local gods
They never died we only lost their number
All you can find here worship and more will appear 

Sacred Journeys part 1

Or- Or, Lets Tell Mr. Ogdoad where to go!!!

Our own Mr. Ogdoad is planning a trip to Europe soon.  I agreed to work on a list of potential destinations for him, as research is both my passion and profession.  I, in a way, see it as a form of vicarious travel for me.  If I can get him to go to Sacred, interesting, or just photogenic places that I would like to visit, 2nd best to me going myself.  If you, too, want to play the game, give him some travel suggestions and tell him why they would be good destinations for him.

Sacred Journeys

“Travel safely, travel soulfully, travel gratefully, and as the old pilgrim’s advice goes, “Stranger, pass by that which you do not love.”  Phil Cousineau preface to 2012 ‘ the Art of Pilgrimage.

Books-

Abram,  David.  The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language In a More-Than-Human World.  Vintage Books, New York. 1996

Hitching, Francis.  The Mysterious World: an Atlas of the UnExplained. Holt, Rinehart         and Winston, New York. 1978

Gray, Martin.  Sacred Earth:  Places of Peace and Power. Sterling, New York/ London. 2007.

Cousineau, Phil.  The Art of Pilgrimage:  A Seeker’s Guide to Making Travel Sacred.  Conari Press, New York, 2012

Penczak, Christopher.  City Magick  : Urban rituals, Spells and Shamanism.  Weiser, York Beach,  2001.

I will mainly be discussing megalithic sites, and pagan sites, as the usual tourist sites are easily found, and constantly written about in tourist literature.  I couldn’t Completely help myself, so have included some of the more generally known that are also locations of interest to me, just to make sure I vicariously get to go again.

Most people in the world of occult study know about Ley lines, first written about by Alfred Watkins in the 1920’s, in The Old Straight Track.  He postulated that lines ran between several ancient sites in straight lines.  Leys have also been discovered crossing over into other European countries, linking with those in England.  Also of interest, a relatively unknown French philologist Xavier Guichard, hypothesized in his book Elusis Alesia, that certain place names with a common root occurred throughout Europe; these locations invariably had hills overlooking a river, man made wells and served as traveler stops set at disconcerting regular intervals on lines radiating from a central place, Alaise.  In the Greek, ‘Eleusis’ meant a meeting place to be travelled to.  He further speculated that the lines were laid out at regular intervals using compass cards such as Greek geographers used.

Mr. Ogdoad, could, then if he chose, follow a system of old energy lines both all over the British Isles, and Europe Itself.

Some of the sites I have chosen lie quite clearly on one of the ley lines in Southern England into France.   There is also no way I can list all of the Cool Places in the given amount of time, for even Bowling Green, much less the whole of Europe!! I still have a day job, so I can’t even really wax poetic about why someone might want to go to the places I have chosen.  For that, I recommend the locations’ tourist bureaus or among guide books, I enjoy Lonely Planet.

Ley Line map and locations for Britain on Link:

http://www.beckhampton-adam.co.uk/index.cfm?pageid=6

England  Cornwall-Tintagel (supposed site of King Arthur’s Castle, commonly supposed to be of Roman anscestery, though it cannot be dated to Rome), Men-a-tol,

Penzance - numerous megalithic sites - St. Michaels Mont-a line to Glastonbury Tor, (All churches on this line frequently bear the name of St. Michael or St. George, Ley lines are frequently also refered to as dragon lines…), Wiltshire, Stonehenge, Avebury Stone Ring

Salisbury –Old Iron Age Earthworks—Old Sarum-oldest found human habitation in Britain, 3000 BC London- the British Museum, Threadneedle street

Glastonbury Tor- (once an island surrounded by fen ,remnants of an iron age settlement, and later Roman occupation, associated with Arthurian Legend as the Isle of Avalon)St. Michael’s Tower,  Glastonbury Abbey, Chalice Well

Bath Abbey and Roman Baths also Georgian Crescent

Keswick Stone Circle(tradition has it that if you count the stones in the circle more than once, you will end up with different answers)

Lindisfarne and Cuthbert Priory ruins

                                      

Ireland – County Mayo- Croagh Patrick  mountain( site of pilgrimage for centuries, esp at Summer Solstice.  Legend has it that this was the site that started the snake driving from Ireland by St. Patrick.  Obviously more to do with it being non-Christian.)

County Cork- Blarney Castle and The Blarney Stone( You know, so there is no point in me telling you )County Kerry- Mt Brandon Stone, Holy well, Stone Circle and Holy well of Kenmore. County Meath- Hill of Tara, Knowth, Dowth, Loughcrew, Newgrange Passage cairns. County Sligo- Carramore- dolman tombs.  Cashel

Well and Cathedral at Kildare

Round Towers in several places- Glendalough, County Wicklow,  

Scotland- Callanish Stone Ring. Elgin Cathedral (magnificent even in ruins) Orkneys- Stones of Stenness,  Ring of Brodgar ( dating from about 2500 BC). Outer Hebrides- Isle of Lewis. Lochness in the Scottish Higlands-Loch Ness Monster- you know you want to!!

Also, of course, men in kilts!

Xavier Guichard and his place name maps on the link v

http://www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk/xavierguichard.htm

The Northern Lights!!

Iceland – Thigeukkir Ruins of Althing Assembley ground

Sweden- Uppsala- Former site of Norse Temple of Uppsala. Gotland- Bronze age burial mounds.  Oland- Stone age passage graves. Stora Alvaret- Bonze age cairns

Denmark- You really are on your own here.   Lejre. Legoland Billund.Copenhagen Tivoli Gardens

France- Normandy- Mont St. Michel (on the line that links Ireland to Greece, including St. Michaels Mount in England.  Previously, for large sections of the day, the sea would cover the causeway linking it to the mainland, as seen as an important plot point in the Scarlet Pimpernel). Carnac Megalithic site.  Chartres Cathedral and Our Lady of Chatres church on top of a pagan site.  The Louvre

Germany-  Black Forest-Schwatzwald.  Neuschwanstein Castle (I have had a picture of this since childhood)  Aachen( Aix-la- Chappelle) collegiate church of St Mary’s and pagan hot springs  Owen –Celtic Holy Mountain of Teck and Oracular cave Sybillenlock

The Brocken- today part of the Harz National Park-Goethe- Now to the Brocken the witches ride;The stubble is gold and the corn is green;There is the carnival crew to be seen,  The time to be there, would of course be Beltaine

Speyer- Imperial Cathedral on top of a pagan site.  Teutobergerwald Neolithic observatory

 Help Mr. Ogdoad, by posting your own destinations, persuasions in the comments section!

How to Keep Excess Personal Energy from Frying Electronics

REposted from BG Witches Meetup

Question for people who do more with energy, reading it, projecting it. I have since childhood, always had trouble with personal electronics, and watches. My history, as I'm sure some of yours also, include dead watches, Dead Walkmen, (I think the count in college for me was somewhere near 10, could buy cheap ones, or expensive ones, it didn't matter) Dead Mp3 players (i'm on #3 now) Dead phones....Any thoughts?

TK.-You need something like a copper band or some other conductive metal or stone to soak up all that extra energy, which is what is frying your techie stuff, I had the same problem with watches and smartphones until I started wearing hematite bracelets and a copper band. Phone still goes a bit wonky after a couple of hours though, damn touch screens. you could always knit it a case and work in some quartz crystals and other soaker up stones into the design.    I'd use some sort of actual "hair" type yarn though, because fur protects critters against the elements and you want to protect your net book from the elements, and just work that baby up with intent.Gotta love yarn spell crafting, haha yarncrafting...should be its own type of magick.  Also why don't you do something with all that extra oomph that you have? Its like a dog it needs to do something constructive or it starts chewing up everything in sight and digging up the yard. Feed to your shields! Or charge something for sort of work!  Jet works too but I tend to over power it and then it shatters to little bits.

Shai Fuston-I wear a hematite ring, you can get them at great escape records. Try doing some tai chi, or some energy manipulation exercises.

T M-When you use your laptop, try putting hematite and copper between it and you to absorb the excess energy..I saw something about this in one of my books and will research and get back with you!

M B-must be why it was so important that I get my hematite necklaces made and wear them all the time.  -I've created "bubbles" or "pockets" within to store extra energy. some for me, some for others. That way, when someone needs some, or I start feeling low, I have reserves.... I started doing this when a storm was blowing in one day and I felt a LOT of good energy from it.......felt like I was going to need extra later in the week for something, and started storing it. It's been great!! Especially when, like most things, "when it rains, it pours" (it seems like a lot of friends need energy all at the same time).  similar to creating my bubble shield......... I imagine bubbles forming around the energy, or creating balls of energy--then forming "shields" or bubbles around them. filling balloons up with energy (yes, 3 different ways of saying the same thing--trying to explain it different ways). anyways, I take these bubbles and push them down inside--basically, put them in pockets to pull out when I need them. It's something new that was a partial thought, and until I typed that earlier, didn't even realize I had taken it to the level it is now.

R S- Whether it's an mp3 player or light bulbs that say they'll last years popping the first time I walk by when I'm really pissed off - I've found NOTHING that keeps this stuff from happening. I've tried crochet 'socks' for electronics, copper, silver, black sachets, etc...I do my best to stay away from my expensive stuff when I'm moody, buy cheap light bulbs and haven't worn a watch in years...lol. I know, not very optimistic, but I guess I've done the whole - accept the things I cannot change thing.

Maggie- When I feel alot of energy or spirit energy.....for me it feels almost like a short of breath, anxiety feeling. Heavy chest. And the "caffeine" type effect last for sometimes 24 hours!

E W- doing grounding exercises Helps a LOT.    It's become a habit of mine to regularly touch metal objects, it's almost to the point of OCD that I do it without noticing.

S B- metal bracelet will help, touching some thing in metall before you touch your electronics. some times washing your hands ,soap and luke warm water , to remove stuck on, or some else energy will help too.