Not much happening as of late; little conjuration work to be done, no big projects. There have been some business requests made, in terms of readings and design work, which is absolutely fabulous; many thanks to those who have asked for them! For those who are thinking of them, why not take a chance and spend some of that extra coin lying around? I could always use the work, after all, and it keeps me busy. But yeah, beyond the occasional reading and my normal daily practice, not much has been happening. Which leads to me writing less, at least for my blog, which after all these months feels real weird. Eh, I guess I needed the break. Anyway, just a few little things I wanted to note lately.
First, as you may have heard from the rest of the interweb, Jason Miller of Inominandum and Strategic Sorcery fame recently released his newest work, Advanced Planetary Magic, a set of 49 calls to the planets based on pairwise combinations of the seven planets. You may have heard of it somewhere else in the blogosphere, and I’ll keep my review short: it’s awesome, and I suggest getting yourself a copy of this awesome work. He describes a system of planetary magic where one uses a particular short invocation or spell for each pair of planets (Luna/Sol, Sol/Luna, Venus/Saturn, etc.), to be used according to a particular situation and in a particular time (planetary hour and planetary day). Nifty stuff, by any measure. He’s starting a project called the Crying of Calls 49, where people who have the text are invited to perform 49 consecutive days of prayer, using each one of the biplanetary invocations each day in a particular hour on each day. The first week starts tomorrow, July 8, with Luna of Luna in an hour of the Moon in the day of the Moon, Luna of Mars on July 9 in an hour of the Moon in the day of Mars, and so forth. He’s set up a Facebook group for it, but as of this writing the group is still inoperational. Quick, go get a copy for yourself and join in on the fun!
I’ve recently picked up my prayer beads again and started using them. I’ve had this dark Indian rosewood mala with red thread for years, bought a long time ago when I was on a strong Buddhist kick, and though I used it for a while with some basic mantras (Avalokitesvara’s and Manjusri’s, to name two), I never really kept up the practice. The prayer beads have just been languishing in their bag for years, maybe picked up once or twice out of nostalgia, and put back. I figured I may as well augment my practice by using them again, though picking out the mantra or prayer to be used with them puzzled me slightly. Then I remembered that I have my own magical motto, “Lautitia Laborum Lucis Laetor” (“I rejoice in the splendor of the works of the Light”), and since it rings pretty deeply with me, I figure I may as well use that as my mantra. It’s pretty relevant to my own work, and is fairly devotional in and of itself. I’ve gotten a good buzz from using my motto as a mantra, as I have the Trisagion and my Prayer of Light. I’ve been experimenting with rhythms and numbers of circuits, and I like the preliminary results so far. My goal is to do at least one motto circuit per day, twice if I have the time; doing this on the train works well enough, since I sit comfortably far back from the rest of the people in a quiet spot where others can’t easily bother me.
Speaking of daily practice, I’m also considering with toying around with my personal schedule. Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays I go to work at the office, and I work from home Wednesdays. On the days I go to the office, I normally get up around 5 a.m., hygeinate myself, do my prayers and meditation and other essential practice, leave around 7, then catch the train to work, then get home around 5 or 6 p.m. Ideally, this allows me four or five hours of time once I get off work for more practice but…I normally just end up on the computer for the night instead. Since I’m a morning person, and there is another train that leaves much later than I’m used to that can still get me to work on time, I’m thinking of shifting more practice to the morning, which gives me about two solid hours each day to really focus on my stuff: a half hour for prayers and offerings, a half hour for meditation, a half hour for energy work and other “kinetic” methods of prayer and practice, and another half hour for more meditation or astral work. This should of course be backed up with more work in the evenings, but shifting more to the earlier part of the day is no bad idea. I’m a morning person, anyway, so this should definitely help me out more in getting my ass in better magical shape. I’d be getting home probably around 7 or 8, but that still leaves me enough time most evenings to relax and get at least another round of meditation again, not to mention any planetary work that happens in the evening. I figure I can handle this fairly well; I’ll try it this coming week as a test round.
Anyway, time to finish tidying up my house and get to my prayers and offerings for the night. How’s this past Mercury retrograde period been treating you? Besides some minor holiday traffic, things have been delightful on my end.
