holidays

17
Dec
2011

Birthdays, Miracles, and the Year Ahead.


Slept in, my room is drifting with the smell of my favourite incense, and a plate that held my decadent breakfast lies empty in front of me. Life is good, life is always good, but today is better and the start of a better period. Today is the day that the Cosmos became manifest, my birthday.
Though this year is a bit more subdued I generally treat my birthday as a holy day. Why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t we? We celebrate the birthdays of our gods, saints, and religious figures as holy days, but we’re deserving of it to. Most mystic traditions agree whatever Ultimate is out there, we are that Ultimate: distilled, miniaturized, shattered, lost, whatever. It’s us. Tat tvam asi.
Embrace your birthday, not just as a day of gifts, cake, and checking the mirror for more grey (note to self: redye my hair), but a day of celebration, contemplation. Cosmos became manifest on your birthday; billions of random particles came together to make you (they’re all gone now and other particles have taken your place, but it was a beginning); billions of unlikely circumstances came together to make you (the right sperm with the right egg, your parents meeting, your parents surviving long enough to procreate in a chain that repeats going back billions of years); spirit took up flesh, the divine descended into the human. When viewed in that way we are so exceedingly unlikely we might as well be impossible, but we’re here, all the factors were perfect, and we’re here. Celebrate! Sorry to go Dr. Jonathan Osterman on my blog (I’m really not), but we are all such impossible creatures, yet we forget, we overlook the wonder that is our very existence. Embrace it.

I love the placement of my birthday. The Sun is Conjunct the Galactic Centre, which has great meaning to me, and it’s just days before the Solstice and two weeks exactly before New Years. If you’ve read this blog for a year this is a bit of a rehash. I treat the two weeks between my birthday and New Years as a kind of twilight period. Really my birthday is when a year begins and ends, but New Years is so close too. So in these two weeks I transition from year to year. For two weeks my magickal/spiritual practice becomes optional. Why? It lets me see what I still want to do, what is still serving me, and gives me time to plan a new routine if needed. For these two weeks I re-evaluate my goals, check at my successes and failures to meet goals over the year, figure out what went wrong and right and where to go from here. Forwards, not backwards, upwards, not forwards. I rewrite the letters that will be released on my death, probably my oldest birthday tradition, stemming back to when we weren’t sure I’d survive to do the adult thing.
Also as it is the twilight of the year I find it’s a brilliant time to do magick to shape the following year. There is something about transition points, dusk and twilight, equinoxes, it is as if the reality of the before period is weakening, but the reality of what is yet to come isn’t in place yet and in that divide, that crack, there lies magick. So in this period morphing into the New Year, I discard the old: physically, mentally, magickally; I evaluate and divine my path, and I seize this halflight of the year and begin to make my next year.
Not everyone is lucky enough to share my birthday (Mega Man, Bart Simpson, and Eugene Levy do) but it’s not needed, it’s convenient. For most people that gap between Christmas and New Years seems to occupy this same nebulous place, it’s not quite this year, but it’s not next year yet.
Evaluate your year, mundanely/intellectually and magickally/intuitively, what worked and what didn’t? Plan your next year in the same manner: think, intuit, research, and divine. Create your next year, seize this in-between place and magick your way to your future. And celebrate my birthday, it couldn’t hurt.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
08
Apr
2011

The Feast for the Three Days of the Writing of the Book of the Law


93.
To those who celebrate it, today is the first of the three feast days marking Aleister Crowley’s reception of Liber AL vel Legis in 1904. For those who don’t know the mythology of the reception the basic account can be found here on wikipedia. I was going to link the Thelemapedia article on it but they have conveniently excluded parts of the story.
Anyways, I wouldn’t say I celebrate the feast, but I observe the reading. I enjoy Liber AL vel Legis, so this gives me an excuse to reread it.
The exoteric side of the tradition, is simply read Chapter I today, Chapter II tomorrow, and Chapter III on Sunday, the anniversaries of their individual reception.
For those looking to read it you can find the full text here on Sacred-Texts.com. This is the full book, so remember to read just the first chapter today.
You can always but a text copy Book Of The Law by Aleister Crowley which looks deceptively like a Gideon Bible, they are on the same shelf in my library, and I’ve confused them occasionally.
You can also find a podcast reading of the book here on Thelema Coast to Coast. This link is just to Chapter I, the following two podcasts are the successive chapters.
And of course, I’ve shared this before but I do enjoy the song. Burning Hearts, from the band Nuit’s album Mother Night. It’s a condensed version of Chapter II.

To those who celebrate, Love is the Law.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
20
Dec
2010

Falling Stars, Lunar Eclipse, and a Long Night


It seems as if the world of occult blogs is all excited about the lunar eclipse on the Solstice.
I’m excited too I guess, but I’m mixed. The eclipse occurs at 0130 EST (excluding the penumbra) of the 21st though using more traditional metrics such as sunrise starting the day and planetary hours that means the eclipse is really still part of the day before, but I’m told I occasionally nitpick. I keep seeing people claiming it’s the first lunar eclipse to happen on the winter solstice in over 450 years, or in nearly 500 years. The last one was in 1638 so apparently people are either using different math than I am, or not using proper sources. Of course it is a fairly uncommon event, while the last one occurred in 1638 it was the first one this side of the Jewish Carpenter’s birth. Though you’ll be happy to know if you survive another 84 years it will happen again.
Now the Sun and the Moon will both be Squaring Jupiter in Pisces, the sign it rules. So the Sun and Moon will be at “odds” with each other, and both having issues with a strong Jupiter in its more spiritual/religious aspect. The Sun is conjunct Mercury (but that happens a lot) and conjunct Pluto as well.
For me this eclipse holds special meaning, and not all of it has been figured out, but as the ritual is in a few hours we’ll see what get worked out. First let me talk about the solstice in my tradition. Winter Solstice we call Night of the Falling Stars. It is a celebration of the Family, in this sense Family is the belief that groups incarnate together for a time for various purposes. We celebrate the Family and our connection to each other. On the darkest night we light a beacon for the Family, we call to those who aren’t present and ask for them to enter our lives. We remember those who we know but aren’t present due to death or separation, we remember those who we know of but haven’t yet met, and we remember those who have come together in this life. In October during Dancing with the Family, we offer the Family, this side, and/or the otherside energy/merit/communion so they can do what they need to do. Now that they’ve been given the energy to do what they need, we invite them to join us one more. To those on the otherside in October we may help them seek out new birth, in December we call to those who have taken up new birth to find their way.
The astrology regarding this eclipse on the solstice is interesting and has some personal repercussions in my system. Our system has three “primary” planets, Pluto, the Sun, and the Moon. Yes, none of them are technically planets (though I’m still hoping we get Pluto back), but the term is used for more of the astrological sense. Now whenever all three planets are in aspect with each other it means something special for us depending on the aspect, and when we have an eclipse it is important because it removes either the Sun or the Moon from the equation. On the solstice we have the Sun and Pluto conjunct, opposing the Moon, but the Moon will be eclipsed anyways so it gets taken out of the picture. The Moon represents on the most basic level the Lower Self, the person who is here now. The “Moon of Kalagni” so to speak, is the person who just had a birthday, is attending university for two simultaneous degrees, likes to climb the Bluffs, solves Rubik’s cubes galore, has a soft spot for Babylon 5, likes blue, etc. The Sun is the Higher Self, the animating Soul, the part of me and Me (or you and You) that continues beyond death.
So during a lunar eclipse our tradition holds several ideas, but basically the Moon, the Lower Self isn’t part of the equation. What does this mean? All reality is cause and effect, how we move about and interact with the world and what we can do within it is related to this Lower Self. During a lunar eclipse we believe we can affect more changes with less interference from the Lower Self, both consciously and karmically. The part of the Lower Self that doesn’t believe in magick, or thinks we’re pushing too hard too far for a result, it is silenced, and the accrued karma associated with that Lower Self for that period cannot interfere with our workings. The lunar eclipse is the time to push yourself a little farther, and do what you usually can’t/don’t. Are you a competent magickian but can never get love magick to work? Try it during the eclipse, perhaps the part that can’t do love magick is associated with the Lower Self. We are both propelled forward and restrained by our past and Lower Self, but in this fragmentary moment we’re released from that.
It’s interesting to think what this means with Night of the Falling Stars. For this holiday Family firmly relates to the Sun level, the Higher Self, something spanning lives. So it is oddly appropriate that the Moon is not in commission during the ritual, leaving the Sun and Pluto to be the primary drives.
Currently it is a bit cloudy, but the satellites show it may clear up in the next eight hours. While being able to see it doesn’t matter (though for some reason we disregard eclipses that aren’t visible from our current location, odd disjuncture) it would be nice to be able to see it. I performed a ritual during the 2004 total lunar eclipse and the visual of the moon disappearing into a red haze was just amazing.
I recommend every magickian try something during the eclipse. Doesn’t matter what your system says about it, it’s the only time for the next 84 years you’ll have a chance to do it so why not take it? At very least go out and watch it. Eclipses are fascinating astronomical phenomena. What’s the point in living in such a brilliant universe if you’re not going to appreciate it?

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick
16
Dec
2010

Sagittarius, Supermassive Black Holes, and New Years


My exams are done now, and I am free…other than my winter holiday projects. Hopefully I’ll get in some posting, in general and about solstice. I just found out two articles I wrote for a book ended up not being used as written, but as information sources, so I’m free to release them now, so I’ll see about getting them up here.
Anyways, to talk on my personal tradition, tomorrow is an important holy day to me. 26° of Sagittarius (most years), or December 17th. The Sun is Conjunct the Galactic Centre and the supermassive black hole therein. It’s also my birthday. Now once your eyes have stopped rolling enough to read I’ll continue.
As I’ve never identified much with the Neopagan movement and their Wheel of the Year, I’ve never felt that October 31 was a good New Year’s, so I tried to think on a spiritual/religious level where to put it. None of the other spokes spoke to me, so I thought more about what I wanted my New Year’s to represent. The results weren’t earth-shattering or unique, but I came up with beginnings, endings, and transformation.
Sounds like a birthday to me. Beginnings, I was born. Endings, I end the current year and was born dead. Transformation, each new age is a new experience born and forged from the last. Where better to place a New Year than the day my first year started?
As “chance” would have it 26° Sagittarius fits this rather well. The Galactic Centre was possibly were most the material of our sun, planets, and selves either formed, accreted, and then was flung from. At very least it helped clump things together, and if anything in the universe represents endings I think black holes seem to be a good symbol, and supermassive ones moreso. Don’t mind the rationalizing on why my birthday is awesome, I don’t expect anyone else to adopt it as the New Year’s day, barring having the same birthday and a high self-value.
That being said, feel free to celebrate me that day, I know that’s what I’ll be doing. Birthdays make great holy days, particularly if we like ourselves. It’s the day that is responsible for us. Granted many days may have influenced who we are and are important, but none of them would have occurred without that first birthday. So I take the day to celebrate who I am.
It’s not all fun and games though. My birthday is also a day where I evaluate myself, and start to plan my transition into the New Year. Since I was born dead (and was an ex-baby that had ceased to be for a relatively long time) and suffered odd health problems, it’s a day I celebrate surviving, but also prepare and acknowledge my mortality. Every year on my birthday I re-evaluate the letters I’ve been writing for 11 years to be released when I die. It seems morbid to some, but for starters, I am morbid, but I also want to make sure that things are taken care of when I die, and that those closest to me know how I feel.
Beginnings and endings, and lastly transformation. I like to plan out the new year, divine it, and figure out how to go about things. Celebrating, evaluating, letter writing, planning, divining, it is a lot of work.
Thankfully my birthday New Year’s celebration is two weeks before the secular New Year’s celebration, so I use that period as my off time. Over the two weeks I plan, divine, and experiment. I’m a driven person who doesn’t relax, or perhaps just doesn’t relax like most people, so these two weeks are my break period. If I don’t feel like exercising, or meditating, then just for those two weeks it doesn’t matter. I do this to give myself a relief valve from the pressure I put myself under (I don’t know if I need it, but I’ll play it safe) and also to see if I still want to do what I’m doing. Maybe it’s time to change my magickal or physical exercises, by seeing how much I do or don’t want to do them over the two weeks, coupled with what happens, I tend to get a good idea on what I should do for the next year.
Now I’m going to go finish prepping for my breakfast tomorrow, because it’s a big day, and I deserve a great meal to start it.

Posted by kalagni in blueflamemagick