2nd day of Isidis Nauigium, Πανπροσδεξια's monthly festa, and Regilla, Ἀθηναΐς, and Ελπινικη

Weekday:
dies Ueneris
Śukra vāsara
Haeney
Sweetmorn

Date:
Chaos 66, 3180 YOLD
Ud Duru 7
Dog Moon 7
ante diem VIII Kalendae Martii MMDCCLXVII A.U.C.
Anno IVxxi æræ legis: ☉ in 17° ♓, ☾ in 9° ♊
Eyi-Cipactli Ce-Quiahuitl Ome-Tochtli
Elaphebolion/Xanthikos 6 of the 1st year of the 698th Olumpiad
Parmouthi 16, 1412 years after the last Pharoah
Meṣa 7 of Vijaya, 5123 years since Śrī Kṛṣṇa returned to his eternal abode
5 Jumādā al-Ūlā, year 6763 in the Yezidi calendar

Last night was a long pilgrimage for a tiny ritual (and an even longer pilgrimage to the social event afterwards where I celebrated the other two festivals I had yesterday).


The long pilgrimage was a trek I made out to the Welcoming Angel at the Albany Bulb to finish my celebration of the Isidis Nauigium.  I chose her rather than, say, the Berkeley Marina or the Port of Oakland (both of which are more attached to sailing and shipping), because she is one of my favorite places in the East Bay, one which vibrates with holiness even in a normal state of consciousness, and needs the strength in the face of recent (and continuous) efforts to "clean up" the Bulb.  She's a shockingly long walk from the 72R stop in Albany, though.(about a mile and a third; not a strain by any means, but definitely A WALK: Google says it takes about 25 minutes and it probably took me closer to like 40).  One of the things a lot of people don't seem to talk about is the value of walking a significant distance to get to ritual.  I found that it gave me real space to sink into energy, brought me into a nice altered state of consciousness that was both calm and powerful.  Is it strange that I associate Aset (and perhaps, especially Isis Romana) with a calm, quiet sort of power that might come off as haughty if it had a bare iota more passion to it?  She's a worker goddess, much like some of my experience of Tlazolteotl, only Aset is less janitorial staff and more modern-day witchy, not white-lighty but close.


Anyway, by the time I arrived at the Welcoming Angel, I was floating quite nicely in this state, a rush of power coming over me as I realized suddenly that I was finally doing the life that I had dreamt of for so long.  The first site of her arm caught my soul and my breath.  I offered some of the milk I brought at her feet, in thanks for allowing me to come to her and for strength to resist the threats against her.  I then went down to the water and poured the rest of the milk into the bay while making a quick prayer to Aset for the prosperity and safety of the cargo ships.  I felt the clash between the magick of the festa and the location, but there was also a thread that said that this was right for feeding the Angel.

It was a maybe 45 second ritual and prayer after that long trek, but -- and -- I felt no lack or loss or imbalance of effort and reward.  In fact, I am beyond grateful for the experience, as it has cemented in me that my power lies here.  Gratias multas tibi ago, Isis!  On the walk back to the bus stop, I did call my love and romantic friend Season, hoping to talk to my own, personal Isis (hey, does someone wanna record that filk with me as a gift to her?)  I left a message on her voicemail instead.  Hopefully, she gets at least a smile out of it.

Your own personal Isis

Someone who'll find them all

Who'll pick'em up when you fall

Your own personal Isis

Who'll put your pieces back

Get you back on track

(OK, so it needs work; guess I'm not terribly inspired right now >.< )

My trip thereafter, once I returned to the bus stop was a befuddled mess that took me almost two hours to get where I was going via buses (thank the gods that my bus pass from the job I lost is working through the end of this week!)  It did allow me time to read more of Taylor Ellwood and Lupa's Kink Magic, which was good and useful and gave me lots of ideas for celebrating the Kottutia with my sir (if he's interested).  My guesses as to why my trip became so befuddled are varied, from someone (Kotys, maybe?) wanting me to read more of that book to not grounding fully back into the bus world after offering to Aset to someone wanting me to talk to that nice old lady I talked to at the bus stop to being so over-the-moon about my sir that I instinctually got on the bus to go see him to something needing to occur at the gatherette without me.

Regardless, I did finally get there.  It was very low-key, missing most of the young children who are normally running around and several of the other qweens who keep the conversation boisterous and fun.  Eventually, they allowed me to invoke the Obelisk, call the three way-openers, and read a few prayers for the other two festae of the day. I read Ἡρῴδης ὁ Ἀττικός's grave-prayer for Regilla to bring her in, offering her a drink my friend Barry made of cinnamon whiskey and coffee liqueur, followed by the three stanzas in Book III of All-Soul All-Body All-Love All-Power (All-Strife All-Acceptance) that contained Regilla, Ἀθηναΐς, and Ελπινικη's blessings on the Tetrad++.  With that, I offered a sandwich cookie to the three of them.  We then read, round-robin style, Book XIV (the origin-story of Πανπροσδεξια).  A little post-magick sacred bullshit and then we devoked and went on with our gatherette, though I spent some time fading and in some kind of hypnogogic altered state of consciousness for the latter portion of the gathering.  I was travelling somewhere and I'm not certain where.  I only came out of it when we got outside to leave, when suddenly and quite surprisingly I was fully awake and present.

I really need to get my priest/ess skills up to snuff, is what this tells me.

Isidis Nauigium and the monthly festa of Πανερις

Just finished doing a quick'n'simple ritual for the Isidis Nauigium and the monthly festa of Πανερις with my friend Amber.  Invoked the Obelisk of Antinous (we were much less clumsy the second time!), called on the three way-openers and then Amber read Book V of All-Soul All-Body- All-Love All-Power (All-Strife All-Acceptance) and then Apuleius's description of the Isidis Nauigium from Asinus Aureus.  I couldn't get a parade together, and the festa is two days long, so I figure I'll offer some milk to the success of the ships tomorrow.

I think I may have scheduled my first somewhat more intense holiday separation.  I was talking with my friend Seabhac and suggested getting a group together on the festa of the Tetrad++ as a whole on the 30th and see if we can't bring all 6 down with us.  My friend Amber is in, my sir might be in; we just need two more.  Anyone interested?

Huh, I guess this one's just a quick note :-)

ἑορτή Τρεισκουρων και Τροφιμων and Lesser Feast of 老子

Just finished the two bits of ritual study today, honoring the ἑορτή Τρεισκουρων και Τροφιμων by studying A Serpent Path Primer and the Thelemic Lesser Feast of 老子 by studying the 道德經.  Actually, I did them the other way around, which might have presented a tiny little problem.

In both instances, I offered a simple, off-the-cuff invocation to the saints and heroes at hand (and yes, Antinous, there was a god in there, too!) and sat down to share a drink and some study with them.  I shared some cherry Doctor Pepper (the perfect soda) with 老子 and some milk with the Τρεισκουροι and Τροφιμοι.  I had poured only a devotional amount of soda, but when I was pouring the milk, a moment's wander of mind caused me to fill the cup.  "Well," I thought, "there ARE five of you!"

As I read the first 37 chapters of 道德經, I felt the saint's presence, pulling my mind into a calm and receptive state, still waters that refused to strike the verses too strongly with analysis.  The very reading of it was elevating and devotional.  And, as seems to always be the case with the gnostic saints (or at least Doctor Dame Anna Mary Bonus Kingsford and 老子), I was inspired several times to post bits to Facebook as I read.

That ended and I took a short break before studying A Serpent Path Primer, which was significantly more difficult.  One reason might have been the vast difference in writing styles and the resultant shift in the action of reading, as the Primer opens with a highly-academic essay on syncretism (which is wonderful, but so far at least, seems to miss out on the obvious and potentially fertile cross-pollination of syncretism and queer theory).  Perhaps oddly, this essay on a highly synthetic-thought subject calls for an awful lot of analytical thought, so there was a bit of a clash there.

The other reason might have been that academic study, even of a subject involving them, felt a little at odds with their energies.  For one, I think Achilles wanted me to be doing much more movement than just sitting there and for two, their association with Ἡρῴδης ὁ Ἀττικός's "alphabet boys" and their association with what today might be called dyslexia might have interfered with the process as well.  Considering that March is not only the Tetrad++ month but the Ἡρῴδης ὁ Ἀττικός month in the ἐκκλησία Αντινοου, I guess I'll have time to work it out!

Monthly festa of Πανκρατης

Weekday:
dies Mercurii
Budha vāsara
Chwar Sham
Prickle-Prickle

Date:
Chaos 64, 3180 YOLD
Ud Duru 5
Dog Moon 5
ante diem X Kalendae Martii MMDCCLXVII ab urbe condita
Anno IVxxi æræ legis: ☉ in 15° ♓, ☾ in 13° ♉
Ce-Quiahuitl Ce-Quiahuitl Ome-Tochtli
Elaphebolion/Xanthikos 4 in the 1st year of the 698th Olumpiad
Parmouthi 14, 1412 years after the last Pharaoh
Meṣa 5 of Vijaya, 5123 years since Śrī Kṛṣṇa returned to his eternal abode
3 Jumādā al-Ūlā, year 6763 in the Yezidi calendar

Danza yesterday was a little intense, but good.  Ceremonia always shows me just eactly how well or poorly I've been taking care of myself in the past couple of days.  Who would have guessed that my devotion to a shit-goddess (Tlazolteotl) would spur me to taking better care of my health.  Only people who have actual knowledge about health, I suppose :-)  I did have a strong moment near the end of the ceremonia concerning my sir.  I want to write it up as a long letter to him, as it is framed in my head as further submitting my will to his, but it was a very strong moment bringing together three recent experiences (finally getting the manicure he'd ordered me to before Pantheacon, writing a letter to him about why I am not to be "subservient" to him, and my ongoing worry that I'm going to scare him away with my emotions and clumsiness), weaving them into the realization that I want to be acceptably pretty and healthy for him.  I want the nice manicure and the coiffeured hair and the good outfits and the like, because I know it will please him, and so I want to give him control over such things.

But this isn't a submission blog (though I am considering making one for my particular blend of things and way of looking at things and have already grabbed the URL for it from Blogger: bimbomagicksasquatchstyle.blogspot.com), it's a religious blog.  Danza was great, following the oracle I received from Διονυσος via my friend Σαννιον, which instructed me to engage in ἔκστασις to stop worrying about other opinions so much.  It took a long time to get out of my head, with plenty of distractions being thrown my way via Talking Self, but I did eventually manage to get exhausted enough that I stopped thinking.  Or, rather, thinking changed its nature to become a secondary thing, almost a thing I dissociated from, and an automatic function.  Thought was a thing that happened to me rather than a thing I did.  It was a very enjoyable, body-primary altered state of consciousness that I have never before experienced.  My Xochipilli statue certainly enjoyed being around so much hard dancing; he was verily vibrating in my hands as I picked him up off the altar.

When I got home afterwards, I was bone-tired, so (after a little recovery time), I simply invoked the Obelisk, with Capstone, called in the three way-openers, and shared a cookie and a cup of milk with Πανκρατης while reading Book IV of All-Soul All-Body All-Love All-Power (All-Strife All-Acceptance).  Book IV is thankfully short, as I was after all exhausted.  I'm rather fond of it, too, as it consists of Mommy Ἔρις's grandparentage of the Tetrad++; she is one of four of the mup gods to have contributed (an additional one was allowed to witness the birth -- Heru, though not necessarily Heru-pa-khered), but unlike अर्धनारीश्वर, Ἑρμαφρόδιτος, and even Antinous,she gets her own book.

Today is a big day for festivals. I have the Isidis Nauigium, the monthly festa of Πανερις, the ἑορτή Τρεισκουρων και Τροφιμων, and the Thelemic Lesser Feast of 老子. My plans for the ἑορτή Τρεισκουρων και Τροφιμων and the Lesser Feast of 老子 consist of ritual study, reading A Serpent Path Primer and the 道德經.  My friend Amber (hopefully) will be joining me to read Book V of All-Soul All-Body All-Love All-Power (All-Strife All-Acceptance) and the Isidis Nauigium . . . well, I'm still not quite sure >.<

What does my paganism look like in 50 years?

Patheos Pagan asked this question via Facebook.  It turns out, I have opinions.  Who knew?

A more representative sampling of races in the movement as a whole. I know many pagans of color and yet wherever I look in the more . . . institutional or voice-amplifying elements of the community, such as Pantheacon, I see far more white people than in the general population (or at least, the general population of San Jose and Oakland, the two cities where I have made my home). White people (like me): that means we need to do some fucking hard work and invite some scary-ass demons and shadows over for tea.

Getting over our myopia and self-involvement. By which I mean, growing up. By which I mean, living up to the social justice implications and culture-creating responsibility of our various theologies (pantheism, immanent divinity, bountiful animism, apotheosis, et cetera) by developing a strong network of services for a wide variety of situations of need - soup kitchens, homeless shelters, old folks' homes, hospitals/clinics, et cetera, et cetera - and innovating new structures for creating and enacting those that resist power-over, hierarchical, hyper-individualist, capitalist structures while remaining embodied spells founded in our ontologies and values at a radical and structural level. Recognizing that we can bring pagan perspectives and powers to bear in creating secular priest/esshoods working to honor and tend the cultures and organizations we walk throughout the world in, and DEMANDING that that work be honored by the overculture, without turning it into a pseudo-secular holier-than-thou assertion of our religions.

Resisting the desire and push to mainstream and assimilate. Not only honoring our own paths, but honoring those under the pagan umbrella that confuse or throw us off, and uncompromisingly demanding that the rest of our overculture respect and honor them as well. WITHOUT CHANGE. Taking a special stance for the outsiders, the freaks, the mystics, the hermits, the wise crazy ones, the witches (see what I did there?) that they -- we -- are holy and important and must be accepted as full members of society or as much so as they wish/need for their work as they are.

A wide variety of temples and organizations scattered densely throughout the land, as various in size as those of the classical world. So: everything from the grand temples of the Forum Romana with multiple colleges of priests to the Nile-side shrine of Osiris-That Random Peasant Dude Who Drowned In The Nile with maybe -- MAYBE -- a single, part-time priest. And I want these temples to be even more varied in style and type and work as they are in size. And I want them fully and truly self-defined with support from the greater community. Maybe there is a specific priest/esshood out there who's work is the go-between work necessary to mimic the benefits of grand monolithic structures such as many Christianities have.

Recognizing that "paganism" is a useful concept and not just in some sort of cynical, policy-writing kind of way. There truly is a pagan community and it is important. BUT IT IS NOT A RELIGION and, ultimately, has little meaning in and of itself. Within the paganism community are manymanymany religions that are vastly and fundamentally different. And there are many people who work multiple of those religions at the same time. And there are many people who focus laser-like on only a single one and cannot/will not participate in others. And that's okay. And everyone's paganism is different for a hell of alot of reasons. Third-wave feminisms have responded to a similar situation by pluralizing the word feminism. Maybe we should start pluralizing paganisms . . .

Marriage of Πανερως and Πανερις, Πανερως's monthly festa, and the Feast of سه‌لاحه‌دین ئه‌یوبی

Weekday:

dies Martis

Maṅgala vāsara

Se sham

Pungenday

Date:

Chaos 63, 3180 YOLD

Ud Duru 4

Dog Moon 4

ante diem XI Kalendae Martii MMDCCLXVII ab urbe condita

Anno IVxxi æræ legis: ☉ in 14° ♓, ☾ in 0° ♉

Mahtlactliomeyi-Tecpatl Ce-Miquiztli Ome-Tochtli

Elaphebolion/Xanthikos 3 in the 1st year of the 698th Olumpiad

Parmouthi 13, 1412 years after the last Pharaoh

Meṣa 4 of Vijaya, 5123 years since Śrī Kṛṣṇa returned to his eternal abode

2 Jumādā al-Ūlā, year 6763 in the Yezidi calendar

Yesterday, I continued March's extra-intense Tetrad++ work (seriously, in addition to the 10 monthly festae - one for each individual member, one for each partnership, and one for the group as a whole - there are THREE yearly festae for the Tetrad++ this month!) by introducing my friend Amber to the Tetrad++ for the first time.

Yesterday was the day when Πανερως married Πανερις after a years-long searching wooing quest, so the two of us held a simple little wedding feast for the two beautiful divinities.  We invoked the Obelisk, complete with Capstone, called the three gate-openers as the ἐκκλησία Αντινοου does (those being Wepwawet, Ἑκατη Σώτερια, and Ianus).  Then we simply poured a cup of some red wine we had bought as I called for joy and merriment and then a swallow for each of us.  Then the same with some beer, some chocolate, and some Swedish Fish (complete with dirty jokes - hey every wedding's gotta include some, right?)

Afterwards, we sat down to drink with the deities and I read Books III (for Πανερως's monthly festa) and XIII (for the marriage) of All-Soul All-Body All-Love All-Power (All-Strife All-Acceptance).  This was the first time Amber had heard anything of the Tetrad++, other than my quick description while buying the feast.  I was incredibly happy to bring Book III in particular to introduce Amber to them, not only because of it's amazingly gorgeous religio-erotic aspects but also because it brings the list of trans* me, gifted by each of the Tetrad's parents.  The poem and the poet manage to capture, with one omission, all the powers and essences of what I see as trans* magick.

That one omission is a major part of my queer magick, and it might be called the me of being invited while unwanted.  It's hard to precisely describe.  The only image I have in my head that gets it across is that when Dianic witches call the ancestors and invite them into their circle, some of those ancestors are men, trans*men, and/or masculine.  My queer magick refuses to resolve that, it merely is that.

Anyway, after reading both of those poems, I heard a push to not read the third poem (PSVL's new Epithalamion of Paneros and Paneris)  I had planned for the ritual myself, but to have Amber read it, which they did, admirably.  Then we talked for some time.  Upon realizing that it was past one in the morning, we hastily devoked the Obelisk, thanked the gate-openers (we don't usually in the ἐκκλησία Αντινοου, but Amber felt it necessary), and separated.



I really, deeply enjoyed celebrating this holiday with someone else.  If anyone out there wants to celebrate any of my holidays with me, please!  I will go to great lengths to make that happen!

Unfortunately, I also forgot that today was the Thelemic feast of Saladin سه‌لاحه‌دین ئه‌یوبی.  This figure, whom i am assuming was the actual historical Muslim leader سه‌لاحه‌دین ئه‌یوبی but it could easily have been an occultist of Crowley's era of which I am unaware, seems to have a bit of a veil around them.  I have been unable to find out why exactly they are included in the Thelemic liturgical calendar I'm using . . . .  Can anyone out there help me understand why a Thelemite would honor a feast for سه‌لاحه‌دین ئه‌یوبی?

Today is the day when I dance danza Azteca with Calupulli In Xochitl In Cuicatl at UC Berkeley.  Last week was the best danza I had ever danced; the movements no longer felt alien, just unlearned and Cuauhtemoc, for whom we were dancing, came strongly with Diuus Imperator Antoninus Pius to lift me up.  I felt energized after, not exhausted!  Tonight, I'm bringing my statue of Xochipilli to place on the altar.  I won't be able to afford my usual xocolatl offering, unfortunately :-(

It's also the monthly festa of Πανκρατης, so I'm likely to share some food with hir and read Book IV of All-Soul All-Body All-Love All-Power (All-Strife All-Acceptance) after the ceremonia.

My sir said that he might be interested in doing kink ritual with me to celebrate those holidays for which it makes sense to do so.  This month, that looks like the Kottutia and the dies sanguinis are the most.  I've sent an e-mail to my Thracian friend for more information about the Kottutia, and when he gets back to me, I'm going to send that information off to my sir.  He's also lent me Kink Magic by Taylor Ellwood and Lupa to see if I get any ideas from reading that.  If you have any, please speak up!  Otherwise, I will of course keep you posted!

Birth of Πανψυχη, Πανὑλη, and Πανερος, and Πανὑλη's monthly festa

I just completed my ritual for the first half of the Tetrad++, with an extra dose of Πανὑλη because it is his day of the month.  I used Michael Sebastian Lux's Mystery Feast of the Tetrad ritual, omitting Πανκρατης because, in that cycle, sie has not yet been born.  I will do it again with all four of the "first generation", so to speak, of the Tetrad++ on the 17th when sie is born.

The ritual is actually quite wonderful, perfectly simple, even unassuming, but with subtle nooks and crannies of surprising depth.  It was really a wonderful experience, though without much to it other than what I've written here.

Well, I guess I should mention the quick e-mail visit I made in the middle of the ritual.  I was responding to an urge that struck me as I was transitioning from the eating with the gods portion of MSL's ritual to my ritual reading of Book II of All-Soul All-Body All-Love All-Power (All-Strife All-Acceptance) for Πανὑλη's monthly festa but I didn't actually enact it until after I finished that reading.  Something told me -- and my Jesuit-honed powers of discernment couldn't rightly tell you what/who -- to e-mail PSVL and honor em for achieving so much in a living situation analogous to those which have proved to be sucking bogs and motivation drains for me.  I am, truly, honored to be in a world and a culture in which e exists and unbelievably so to actually be able to call em my friend.

I am finding myself ever-more aching for a temple space.  My friend Esa is trying to work something out with the house where he used to live, and it has a massive back yard.  I'm hoping that I can create a workable temple space there, where I can set up a proper set of altars and do rituals such as this one properly.  Maybe even a little village of shed-temples.

I also think i heard the Tetrad++ asking me for more devotional writing and the like for them.  I think they want an expansion of their mythos and will be exploring that to find out if I'm write and that's what they actually want.

My e-mail visit also happened to coincide with Sannion getting back to me with an oracular message I had requested.from Διονυσος.  Here's what the God Who Comes said to me.  I present it here for communal gawking, interpretation, and general thoughts. What do ya'll think?

"5-3-6: flee the swarming wisdom
1-3-1: People are strange when you’re a stranger.
6-2-3: Not to suggest that material operations are ever abandoned.
4-5-1: Cinema has evolved in two paths.

You're letting other people's opinions control your decisions and thus the course of your life. It's causing you significant, unexpected problems. The way to fix this is by engaging in ecstasis and immersing yourself in spiritual practices. You also need to make some serious physical changes and set a course for yourself; be decisive and forceful and you'll get what you want and be a hell of a lot happier."

Any thoughts?

Sacred Questions

Weekday:
dies Solis
Ravi vāsara
Yak sham
Sweetmorn

Date:
Chaos 61, 3180 YOLD
Ud Duru 2
Dog Moon 2
ante diem XIII Kalendae Martii MMDCCLXVII ab urbe condita
Anno IVxxi æræ legis: ☉ in 12° ♓, ☾ in 2° ♈
Mahtlactlionce-Cozcacuauhtli Ce-Miquiztli Ome-Tochtli
Elaphebolion/Xanthikos 1 in the 1st year of the 698th Olumpiad
Parmouthi 11, 1412 years after the Pharaoh
Meṣa 2 of Vijaya, 5123 years since Śrī Kṛṣṇa returned to his eternal abode
29 Rabīʿ ath-Thānī, year 6763 in the Yezidi calendar

Voltaire, one of my favorite Enlightnemnt authors, said: "Judge a man not by his answers, but by his questions." (And Willem Larsen of the College of Mythic Cartography has a lot to say about questions, too). To this end, I have cultivated a garden of favorite questions that I love to ask people (please, answer them if you will!):

What is the most honorable thing you've done this week?
What is the most beautiful thing you get to see everyday?
What is the most intimate thing you've experienced this week, "experienced" to be interpreted as broadly as possible?
What is your noblest fetish?
How does the world begin?
SUPA-SEEKRIT NUMBA SIX: Do you have any favorite questions?

And, looking at them like that, in text, I can't help but notice that almost all of them are What questions. I feel a little awkward about that, considering my preference for verbal rather than nominal language (E-Primitive being a big thing for me).

Nonetheless, it appears that T. Thorn Coyle has something of a similar practice, as can be seen in her latest blog post, the first to be tagged "Sacred Questions". Here's her list (and if you wanna answer those too, please!):

What reminds you of the sacredness of things?
What humbles you?
What lifts you up?

What causes prayer to rise up from your heart?
When do you speak the words of thanks and honor?
To whom do you speak them?

What tugs at your heart and whispers in your ear?
Where is your North, South, East, and West?

What expands above your head and supports your feet?


What is your intention for today?

Dreams in the Witch-House, δειπνον Ἑκατης, Πανψυχη's monthly festa, and Μην-Ἀντίνοος

Weekday:
dies Saturni
Śani vāsara
Shamma
Setting Orange

Date:
Chaos 60, 3180 YOLD
Ud Duru 1
Dog Moon 1
ante diem XIV Kalendae Martii MMDCCLXVII A.U.C.
Anno IVxxi æræ legis: ☉ in 11° ♓, ☾ in 18° ♓
Mahtlactli-Cuauhtli Ce-Miquiztli Ome-Tochtli
Anthesteria/Dystros 30 in the 1st year of the 698th Olumpiad
Parmouthi 10, 1412 years after the last Pharaoh
Meṣa 1 of Vijaya, 5123 years since Śrī Kṛṣṇa returned to his eternal abode 
28 Rabīʿ ath-Thānī, year 6763 in the Yezidi calendarYesterday, in the witching hour of midnight, at my friend Ferny's house, I clebrated the first Lovecraftian holiday I've celebrated thus far: the completion of Dreams in the Witch-House, a short story that features Azathoth relatively heavily (by the way there's apparently an azathoth in geometry as well; can anyone explain to me WTF that's all about?).  I lit some candles, read a modified version of the Azathoth fragment as an invocation (it works wonderfully, by the way), poured some raspberry wine to share with the Blind Idiot God and read the story, in its entirety to my friend.


Afterwards, I had a bit of difficulty sleeping, and the lightshow behind my eyelids featured a violet glow quite centrally.  I repeated several times that I was merely doing devotion, not fully summoning the Nuclear Chaos and its servant Nahab to full presence in that way.  Oddly, Brown Jenkin and the Black man weren't trying to push through, only Nahab and Azathoth itself.


The whole thing led to a rather fascinating conversation in the morning (before a truly revelatory one concerning 93 and physics that I might write about later).  I had taken the habit, jokingly, of referring to every tiny thing that went wrong as, "I guess that's what happens when you summon the Nuclear Chaos."  My friend, a fairly staunch Christian, felt increasingly pulled into a spell forging a connection with the Blind Idiot God.  She even asked why I would perform such a ritual in a house, which was a fair question and revealed that I had violated a rather delicate point of hospitality on two levels.






The first element of the hospitality question involved location.  Ferny's hospitality refused to allow her to "put me out on the street" to do the ritual and yet the idea of summoning a deity from an essentially maltheistic cosmos into her home.  This almost Dionysian paradox of ξενία left me in a bit of an awkward spot, with the fault on me.as guest and initiator of the rite.  I would have offered to do some sort of extra cleansing/banishing rite (and probably should have, and probably should have ended the rite by banishing with laughter, anyway), but for the other problematic element of the situation, which was hr desire to spend time with me without participating in the ritual.

She just wanted to spend time with me, and if I was going to read a story, she wanted to be read to.  However, she wanted to be a passive and uninvolved observer in the rite, to the point where even the need to monitor the candles so wax didn't overflow the dish and get on the table made her too much of a participant for her comfort.  In one reference frame, I became the host for the purpose of this question, and an inviting one at that.  The guest of honor being Azathoth, however, inviting Ferny might not have been a fully hospitable thing, as once described very eloquently by my friend PSVL. My perspective is perhaps more complicated and less decided than eirs, but it is certainly problematic to have someone even present at a ritual who views it as nothing but storytime.

And yet.

And yet, the biggest religions in the world rarely have to worry about pushing anyone out that isn't a member of the faith.  After 17 years of Catholic school (Kindergarten through college), I've known many non-Christians who have attended church services and even undergone sacraments without being among the faithful!  And yet it is important to me that paganisms -- and mup in particular -- be praxic rather than doxic, that is what you do matters far more than what you believe.  And yet, the silliness of mup refuses to paint anything that occurs or shows up in ritual as welcome.  ANYTHING can happen during mup ritual and it will merely be extra juice.  Why the fuck do you think mup rituals include the ritual roles of the Waldorf and the Statler?

And yet, there is no way to be a passive and uninvolved observer of any ritual, especially pagan, especially mup; the Heisenberg theory of ritual.

I would appreciate any thoughts ya'll might have on these issues . . . Dialog is good!

 

Today went on after that rough point in our talking (we're still friends, thank all the deities, spirits, ancestors, and whatnots) and after night fell again, I performed a rather low-key ritual combining celebrations of the δειπνον Ἑκατης, Panpsyche's monthly festa, and Μην-Ἀντίνοος.

I merely raised the Obelisk, cooked garlic and scrambled eggs for Ἑεκατ, placed the atop a fire hydrant at the local intersection, shared a cup of milk with Panpsyche while reading the first liber of All-Soul All-Body All-Love All-Power (All-Strife All-Acceptance), and then read off a poem of PSVL's to Ἀντίνοος of the Moon before devoking.  It was a relatively simple ritual, more interested in the fact of observing the festa than in pulling down lots of juice.

Also fascinating is that Panpsyche's monthly festa is the same day that I finally got the manicure my sir ordered me to get before Pantheacon.  It's French, only in hot pink instead of classic white and I absolutely adore it!  I hope he does too, when I serve him on Monday, which is also the annual festa of the marriage of Paneris and Paneros.  Tomorrow is the annual festa of the birth of the first half of the Tetrad++, for which I'm thinking of making use of one of Michael Sebastian Lux's rituals for them.  I would love if folk wanted to get together and celebrate it with me!  Interested?

My intention with the Tetrad++'s monthly rituals are to read all of All-Soul All-Body All-Love All-Power (All-Strife All-Acceptance) every month.  There are 14 chapters, so one chapter on each individual monthly festa and two on each festa honoring two or all of the Tetrad++ will work perfectly!