Sulum Factum Magus

I am currently putting together a course of instruction in pagan magic and self development for busy people. I thought you might be interested in trying out a few of the ideas…. first up is an exercise that almost anyone can fit into their day, focussing on the element of Air.  Stay tuned for further installments!

A fundamental tool for seeing the connections, relationships and energy of everything arround us, is the system of the four elements, Air, Fire, Water and Earth. These form the basis of the magical correspondences that work to empower spellcraft, and guide our understanding of the growth and decay of all natural cycles. Air as an elemental concept begins with the physical medium of Air, which we breathe. Breath is synonomous with life, and the point of death is referred to as the last breath. A fire will die without sufficient air. A room without sufficient air is stuffy. Air is invisible, unless it carries something like smoke in its currents. Air can be moved into great winds which can cause much damage. The ancients considered Air to be cold, light, mobile, and easily moved.

The Hermetic dictum, “As above, so below”, may be applied to transpose these qualities to other dimensions of life. For example, the mind can also be characterised by the coldness of thought, changeability, and lightness, in the sence of easily moving from topic to topic, like a breeze blowing hither and thither. So thought, and the mind may be seen as having the elemental quality of Air. Beginnings are also light and changeable, times of infinite possibility, and so beginnings also may be assigned the elemental quality of Air. The surface of things is most easily touched, most easily changed, most easily moved or altered. Thus the surface of anything has the elemental quality of Air. Air is drying – the washing dries quickest on a windy day. Thus drying things have an elemental quality of Air – even a dry sence of humour is quite cerebral, and the “dry” branch of the polital conservatives is more intellectual, while the “wets” are more compassionate. The morning corresponds to Air, as it is the beginning of the day. The spring corresponds to Air, as it is the time of awakening growth.

Air can have both positive and negative influences, according to whether it is in balance and harmony, or whether it is out of balance. For example, some people over intellectualize everything – too much Air! Other people don’t bother with even basic planning or fore-thought – leading to failures and disapointment – too little Air! A basic principle of spellcraft is to correct the elemental balance. Where there is too little planning, bring in more of the Air element. Where there is too much intellectualizing, dispel some of the Air element, to make room for other qualities.

Today’s exercise is to adjust the balance of Air, using the power of visualisation, in any situation you find yourself in today. Sitting at your desk writing up a teaching plan? You need more Air! As you work, pause briefly for fifteen seconds, and say to yourself “I call thee element of Air to bless my planning with Clarity, Sharpness of Mind, and Logical Thought. For the highest good of all, so mote it be”. Visualise as you do this a gentle breeze of clear fresh Air rustling the papers on your desk.

You may find yourself in a conversation which is overly intellectual, and so missing the heart of the matter. Too much Air? Say to yourself “I dispel thee element of Air, intellect and analysis, blow now away, and make space for heart and soul.” Visualize a gentle breeze blowing away the overly intellectual atmosphere. In fact a visualized gentle breeze is very useful for blowing away any unwanted situation or person, and freshening up the mind! You get the idea! Let creativity be your guide – and make friends with the element of Air – using intent and visulaisation to adjust its qualities in each situation you find yourself in during the day.

Let me know if you have any success with this way of working!

Blessed Be,

Rob :)

Here is an exercise that you might find useful with your work in the tarot. Indeed, the following method can be used with almost any symbolic representation, in order to contact the astral and spiritual energies and forms behind the appearance. I will describe the exercise in terms of using a tarot card, but you can adapt it as you see fit. To gain the full benefit from this exercise, you should have some ability to move the attention, to visualise, and some experience with activating the third eye chakra. Here is what I do.

Select a card from the major arcana that you wish to work with. Many authors recommend starting with the fool, and working through in sequence. Sit in a comfortable and warm position. Sitting up in bed just before lying down to sleep for the night can be very effective, as the exercise will also then create an impetus to dream on the same subject.

Hold the selected card in front of you, and stare at a focal point of the card. For the cards with human figures, stare at their third eye chakra, just above and between the eyebrows. After awhile, your vision will begin to play strange tricks, as the cells of your retina become habituated to the image. Keep staring at the same point, and allow your vision to do what it will. You may find yourself involuntarily moving your focus, which resets your vision to normal. Don’t worry, just keep staring at the same fixed focal point.

When the vision has started to shift due to the phenomena above, begin the following breathing sequence, keeping the eyes focussed on the focal point you have chosen in the card. As you breathe in, place your attention between your own eyebrows, on your own third eye chakra. As you breathe out, place your attention on the third eye chakra (or focal point you have selected) of the figure in the card. Keep breathing slowly, deeply and smoothly, in a relaxed manner, alternating the attention as described. It may help to visualise a white thread linking your third eye to the third eye of the figure in the card, with your attention moving between the two ends like a bead on a string.

Continue the breathing, with the alternating of the attention for up to ten minutes, all the while keeping the eyes focussed on the third eye (or chosen focal point) of the figure in the card. Now allow your eyes to close, and try to see the card in your mind’s eye, and continue the breathing and alternation of attention. However, now your attention moves to the card you see in your mind’s eye, rather than the physical card. If you can’t see the card with your mind’s eye, no matter – just visualise the card as best you can with your imagination. As you visualise, sooner or later, you will begin to catch glimpses of the card with the inner sight, which will seem to poke through your visualized imagery. If it doesn’t happen on one occasion, it will certainly happen at some stage as you continue working with the attention, visualisation, and the third eye chakra.

After another five minutes or so, or the length of time which feels right for you, transfer your attention to the personage in the card, and leave it there. Allow the experience to unfold in the way that is right for you. You may find yourself receiving impressions, images, or communications from the personage. You may find yourself viewing things from the perspective of the personage. You may find yourself “inside” the tarot card, looking at the card from the inside. Each person will be able to carry on the experience in their own unique way.

When I have done this exercise, I have found that the subsequent day or two becomes powerfully influenced by the energy and archetype of the card, and the resulting experiences have provided profound insight into the corresponding aspects of life. I hope that you will find the same, and that this method helps you to grow towards your true nature and its full and ecstatic expression.

To finish the exercise, express thanks for the experience, and whatever learnings you may have received, and take your leave of whatever energies or personages you may have been interacting with. Focus the attention on your own third eye chakra, for both in and out breaths, for a few minutes, and then move your attention to the point between the top lip and the nose for several deep breaths, with the intention of  grounding and returning your attention and energy back wholly within your own etheric field.

BB

Robyn :)

I work with the Lady Epona as part of my personal pantheon. When I first came into the pagan path, I made my dedication vows to the Lady Epona. The first time I recall specific mention of her in my life, was upon reading the book “Celtic Gods, Celtic Goddesses”, by R.J. Stewart, where there is a beautiful painting of the Goddess, riding, of course, a pony, accompanied by sheaves of wheat, dogs and birds. She has long straight black hair, and dark eyes, and of course rides a white horse. As soon as I saw the picture, I knew that she was my Goddess.

Once in my circle work, which I do as part of my regular practice most mornings, and which usually involves some  inner work with a particular deity or two, it came to me that the Lady Epona has been with me since childhood, and was responsible for the lady’s voice I would hear as a child, calling my name. So I have a strong feeling for the Lady.

The Wikipedia article on the Goddess Epona is well worth reading. From it I summarize some of the following facts. Evidence of the Lady Epona has been found throughout the Roman empire, where it appears she was adopted by horsemen in the Roman legions. From apparent origins in France (then Gaul) she was carried west to Britain and east towards the Balkans, and northwards towards Germany. Shrines were common in stables, and her feast, at least in one location in Italy was celebrated on the 18th of December, around the time of the Winter Solstice. She is often  depicted with a basket of fruit, or a cornucopia bursting with the abundant produce of the fields.

When I first started working with Lady Epona, I felt that nothing really very much was known about her. However the small amount of specific information can be considerably rounded out if we begin to explore the significance of the Horse and Horse Goddesses in Celtic culture. Jannet and Stuart Farrer have written a very good essay on the Goddess Epona in their book “The Witches Goddess”, exploring the themes arising from the spiritual significance of the Horse and related Goddess figures. In Irish mythology, for example, the Goddess of the Land is portrayed as a mare, and Kingship was conveyed by ritualised mating with a sacred mare representing the Land and its Goddess. This theme is also echoed in the story of Epona being the beautiful offspring of such a union, which is told in Plutarch’s Life of Solon. (See the Wikipedia entry for Epona!)

There are a number of Goddesses in Irish and Welsh stories associated with Horses – including Rhiannon, who is depicted in the Mabinogion as riding a milk white mare, and who is forced to carry visitors into the city on her back (like a horse) as punishment for supposedly killing and devouring her baby. Of course, she was being wrongly punished, but that is another story! Also the Irish Goddess Macha was made to race the King of Ulster’s horses, although heavily pregnant. She beat them, and gave birth to twin sons on the finish line. To these we may add other mythological currents that have become entwined with the Lady Epona, such as the stories of Lady Godiva, who rode a white mare naked through the streets  of coventry, in order to redeem the people from onerous taxes. Interestingly, the name Godiva means “Gift of God”. The nursery rhyme 

“Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross
To see a fine lady upon a white horse
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
She shall have music wherever she goes”

Although ostensibly referring to Queen Elizabeth the First of England riding a white cock horse to Banbury Cross, one can’t help noticing that the cock horse which the implied subject of the imperative rides, and the white horse that the lady rides are different horses. The Queen of Fairy traditionally rides a white mare, and is accompanied by the sound of bells – so to me the nursery rhyme is also an expression of the mythic complex associated with Epona and the Horse Goddess. The White Horse of Uffington is a testament to the importance of horses in pre-Roman Britain. Though not specifically linked directly with the Goddess Epona, the figure is similar to horses appearing on pre-Roman coinage, and is perhaps evidence of a widespread Horse Goddess archetype which later emerged as Epona.

Across these stories, some interconnected themes emerge – the connection with the personification of the land; the sacred marriage with a king figure; a resonance with lunar symbolism; the battle between the bright and dark lords (the divine twins) for the Lady’s hand; and the wrong done to the Lady through the patriarchal institutions of kingship and law.

In my own work with the Lady Epona, she is the principle Goddess that I work with for magical workings, particularly those involving the sacred marriage. In my personal Pantheon, she holds sway with Lord Cernunnos as her consort, over the workings of magic, and particularly of magic concerned with the realisation of the true gifts, the abundance of nature, and the abundance and prosperity that follows from the giving of the true gifts to life. 

The Empress card in the Tarot is in many ways a harmonious energy and resonance with the way that I work with the Lady Epona – involving a Venusian aspect that honours and encourages the positive expression of sexual love, as well as independance from any form of subdserviance to the male or patriarchal institutions, and presiding over the bounty of nature. For of course it is from the Womb of the Goddess that all bounty and abundance flows, and in order for that bounty to grow and manifest, the seed of the God is required, for which in my work the Lord Cernunnos happily obliges.

One way that  I work with my Deities is by projection and invocation. In the context of concescrated space, with elemental portals opened and guarded, I invoke the Lord into myself, through concentrated visualisation associated with a regular form of words that over times becomes imbued with evocative power. I then evoke the Lady into the space – through visualisation and her own regular form of words. As the God, and with the Lady, the sacred marriage is then performed. For a male, this may be acoomplished by visualising your hands (the hands of the God) holding the hands of the Goddess, followed by a gentle merging and interpenetration of the two energy fields. For a woman invoke the Goddess, and allow your hands as her hands to hold the hands of the evoked God. Invite and allow the sacred union, but do not impose or force it, or the form it should take. Leave this up to the Gods, and I am sure that you will be, as I have been, surprised, delighted, and humbled by the result.

Although sexual energy is a part of this magical work, it is not in itself a physically sexual practice. The union is energetic and etheric, and while physical arousal may develop, physical stimulation is neither required nor helpful, as it represents a distraction from the point and culmination of the practice. Likewise, the mind should be purified of lascivous or lusty thoughts or immaginings, which are a distraction, and an unwelcome imposition upon the Goddess. She must be given the space to touch you as she will, without the mind trying to impress its desires and fantasies upon the situation.

Often times, if the above guidelines are respected, I find that this practice leads to rapid eye movements, associated with physical arrousal, deep trance states, and the opening of the inner window. This transformation can be assisted by gentle attention on the third eye energy centre, just between and above the eyebrows. In this kind of state, the physical arrousal is akin to the erection that men have while dreaming, in so called REM sleep, and the similar arousal that women experience whilst dreaming. In spite of the physical arousal, it is not inherently a sexual state, but a visionary state. In the olden days, I fancy it was referred to as “riding the broom stick”.

To my way of thinking, this is just the portal of the mysteries presided over by the Lady Epona. Across that threshold, lies a vast territory that though once well known, has been much forgotten by our modern age. It is our birthright to re-explore, and renew our association with these regions. For as the ancients knew, the world arround us is a reflection of the worlds within us. And as the world arround us is, these days, full of hardship, suffering, conflict and exploitation, both of nature and others, so must the inner worlds be filled with conflict and disharmony. Thus the healing of our age must start with the inner journey, and the resolution of the conflict within. Let those who are ready and able take up the task.

Blessed Be,

Rob