Unfortunately my magickal diaries aren’t always what they should be, and this skrying took place during one of those times. I don’t know, nor can I really guess what was going on in my life at the time, all I have are a few weeks of minimal notes, then this experiment recorded.
As always the temple was set up; blue candles everywhere, my skrying mirror reflecting the darkness, cedar and clove smoke cloying the air, and the music swelling and slowing -dancing gently for the King. Making the preliminary calls I reached out to the Tree and found myself drifting up through the darkness. At once I was beckoning and being beckoned to, drawing down and being drawn to. Then the still darkness stopped and I called the door, a square tin door faded out of the darkness, an electric pulsing blue Jupiter glyph it’s only decoration. I knocked once, knocked thrice, and the door opened.
I was greeted by a scene from Coleridge. A lush green valley stretched below me, and not far down from where the door opened was a small but elegant roofless palace made of crystal the colour of clouds fading into a blue sky. Nowhere was a flat horizon, mountains climbed from all corners of the scene into a perfectly clear blue sky with no sun, just omnipresent light. Wandering down a path that seem to grow as I moved I followed the trail to the palace, accompanied every step by the scents of impossible flowers hiding in the bushes. Inside were sculptures of crystal, glowing with faint blue light, geometric forms and impossible shapes accented with the occasional animal that looked so lifelike it was a wonder the crystal didn’t crack and run into the forests surrounding. There was something about their colour and light that reminded me of Almak, the Earth Sphere.
Eir Seal drawn on the Qamea of Jupiter
I found a stream that flowed beneath the stone floor and followed it until I reached the centre chamber. On a couch made of solid cloud rested a person, too tall and lean to be human, beautiful but the proportions were all just slightly off. Eir skin was a dark and deep blue, but it shimmers with shades of blues, occasionally highlighted by other colours. Liquid blue rainbows and peacock feathers seemed to live beneath eir skin. With a gesture of eir hand I was waved to a kneeling stool in front of em. As the breeze moved over em faint music was heard, like crystal flutes in the distance. I knelt in front of em, and ey looked at me for quite a while before speaking. A voice that half sang, filled with musical notes of wild animals and musical instruments. “Rest, and enjoy the kingdom, my kingdom, your kingdom. You have been broken, and constrained, burnt and purified, here may you rest. It is not always so here, but for now take the peace, for the challenges are yet to come.” I asked “What challenges? Why isn’t it always peaceful here?”
Ey reclined on eir cloud-couch. “No kingdom is ever at peace, not as you mean it. All things move in rhythms and cycles, to you as you are they are disruptions, but to us they simply are.” Ey seemed to sense my confusion and continued. “Life and death are just part of cycle, joy and pain, calm and panic. Movements, cycles, but when you see it from our place they simply are. Even when your feet are on your Path there is this pulsing. Much of what disrupts peace is your doing, or the doing of others, but in the end even on the Path there appears to be disruptions, but that is simply the Way. It is peaceful now due to consensus. My sibling of Sun has decreed it. You are on your Path, and we see what is to come, and what has been, so for now, here is peace, so you may rest.” “But what is coming?” “Nothing you should fear, and nothing that can hurt you, the Path merely grows more difficult. Above me lives my sibling, the last ruler on this Ladder you climb, but the Path continues above the Ladder. When you reach their realm the Ladder ends, but the climb must continue. Your Path continues where there is no Path. They are the last of the Forms before the Sky opens. It is hard for your kind to leave the Ladder, but beyond it waits great beauty. Now, you have come for a reason. Ask me your questions, so you may return to your books to see that I am as I say.”
Eir Seal revealed at the time. The only Angel to gift it to me right away.
When asked eir name was given as
Behrat which has the same value as palace, bright/shining, and lean. It was an interesting link that the name equated with palace as that is where we met, and ruling the Sphere of Jupiter, and calling it a kingdom the idea of palace is very appropriate. Lean and shining both work as physical descriptions, but it’s interesting as the Angels of the Sphere in traditional Qabalah are the Brilliant/Shining Ones. The name also connected to El, the traditional Divine Name of the Sphere. It connects to wealth, again appropriately enough for the Sphere. Oddly though there is a Hebrew verb it equals which means both to go, and to be brought, which considering my experience of approaching the Sphere seems to fit.
The Sphere’s name is
Sharat which equals perfume, Shinamin (the Angels of Chesed of Briah), and Palace of the Pavement of Sapphire Stone. While the latter is a name traditionally associated with Malkuth/Earth, and Yesod/Moon the description couldn’t fit this place better, a palace, the sapphire blues everywhere. It really fit. It was interesting too that both the Angel Name and the Sphere Name contained a reference to a palace (especially given the Sphere).
The
Gillarus are the class of Angels of this Sphere, and their name equates with to conquer, to govern, and lord/ruler. For Angels of the Kingdom of Jupiter those all work very well.
Finally the God Name that Rules and Forms the Sphere is
Sharadifel relating to Judge, to rule, and valley. The first two again appropriate for the Sphere, valley suiting the vision itself. The name also connects to Mercy, which of course for those playing the home game is the meaning of Chesed, the name of the Jupiter Sphere in the Qabalah.
Also, while irrelevant to the meanings, both Behrat and Gillarus have the same value as different words meaning “girdle” it’s not unusual for names to have similar meanings in this experiment, but I’ve never had them mean the same thing, but mean something totally unrelated. (Unless someone knows how girdles connect to Jupiter/Chesed)
Every Thursday, or the beginning of a Jovian ritual I have the base prayer I recite:
Hail to thee Behrat, ruler of Sharat, King of the Gillarus, in the Name of Sharadifel I call you here, and ask that you work with me, and walk with me.
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Over on Ganachakra there is an excellent post about the challenges of translating Buddhism to the West. How it gets distorted, censored, and misunderstood, and what it leaves behind. It’s really worth the read to think about how Vajrayana gets presented/understood differently in the West than in cultures where it has roots. When I try to explain to people what my practice involves, they’re often confused, I’ve been angrily told “That’s not Buddhism” and that my practices are “Anti-Buddhist” and I just have to point out that Buddhism, specifically Vajrayana, is a different animal than most people realize. This article really grapples with that.
Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice – Mark Singleton
The Secrets of Doctor Taverner – by Dion Fortune