Druidic Divination Spread Model

Please begin by ignoring the vague resemblance to the "Tree of Life" diagram - purely coincidental. I offer this spread for experimentation. It's part of the first draft of my Book of Nine Moons project - more divination stuff!

While I use standard ideas from the Druidic Order of Worship for some of the positions, I have tried to generalize these into the kinds of abstract meanings that are useful in doing 'readings' for others. If one wished to use the spread as a more direct set of omens 'from' the Kindreds, etc, that would probably work fine. As written the positions are more 'about't he influences associated with the Kindreds.

Freely offered for experiment, comments encouraged.

This spread is based on three triads and two additional omens, Thus:

The First Triad - Three Omens about the Self

1: Midrealm: The Querent: immediate and personal - the question itself

2: Earth Mother: Underlying forces, source of strength

3: Gatekeeper: Influence of the spirits, for good or ill

The Second Triad - Three Omens about the world and the querent's place in it.

4: Past

5: Present

6: Future: Direct omens about conditions and likelihoods

The Third Triad - Three Omens about influences and possibilities

7: Ancestors: Memory and Culture; influences from the past, opinions of others, social rules and customs; the Tribe

8: Landspirits: Magic and Luck; special opportunities or risks, access to power or need for protection; the Outsiders

9: The Gods: Inspiration and Blessing; the highest in the self, the most powerful in life, distant influences and sudden possibilities

If the Diviner desires she might lay omens for the last two positions

10: The Sacrifice: what will be required to gain the Blessing

11: The Blessing: The final good to be gained from the outcome

Divination Theory

This is an exceprt from the article on divination I'm working on for the Nine Moons project. I should finish that article today, and with it the first three months of that magical practicum training. I have been surprised at how difficult this bit of writing has been for me. The fact is that while I have practiced divination all my life I have never undertaken to write more than the simplest guide before. This piece is much more theoretical, and has more advice on doing readings, etc, than anything I've written before. For example, here's the bit on how and why divination works.

In the course of your retreats you will be doing divination regularly. As you begin to become familiar with the system you’ve chosen and the details of performing a reading, it may also be worthwhile to consider some of the metaphysics and meaning of divination.
Divination is the use of personal intuition and spiritual inspiration to interpret the patterns and signs of the natural world, in such a way as to reveal knowledge or information. In some cases the patterns interpreted by seers are cyclical, such as in astrology, but more often symbols are observed or generated at random. The mix of lots in a bag, the shuffle of a pack of cards, even the unpredictable movements of a column of smoke or of wildlife may appear meaningless to the common mind, yet the diviner’s vision sees patterns that convey meaning beyond common understanding. If we want to consider theories as to how this can happen I might propose three central themes.
First we can look at what might be called the “classical” metaphysical or occult theory. This draws on two traditional laws of magic – the principle of reflection and the doctrine of signatures. The famous maxim “As above, so below; and as below, so above” is remembered from late Hellenic Paganism, but it expresses an Indo-European principle so widespread as to be universal. This doctrine holds that the many layers of the world all reflect one another, both in their forms, and in the events that occur within them. In this model causation occurs in all directions – events in one realm influence all other realms, though the intentions of sentient beings can direct that to some degree. What occurs in the Underworld has reflection in the Mid-world and the heavens and vice-versa, throughout all the worlds. This produces what we might call a ‘holographic cosmos, in which the whole is present by reflection in every part. A number of corollary laws come from this, the most relevant for us being the ‘doctrine of signatures’.
Since all spiritual forces produce their likeness and distinctive signs in the material world by reflection, the wise have sought to understand which spiritual forces are associated with which material things. This has led to lore that concerns the meanings of colors, directions, stones, herbs, trees, etc. In the same way, an image of a spiritual power, created by humans, will natural partake, by reflection in that power if made with the proper colors, shapes, symbols, etc. A divination system is an attempt to create a symbol system that effectively contains the whole of the worlds in its symbols, a balanced structure that can accurately reflect the structure of the cosmos and its variations. The clearest example of such a system is astrology, in which the stars, planets and sections of the heavens make an eternal wheel reflecting life’s possibilities. In the same way augury from natural things always contains the whole world, because it is in fact drawn from the world as it is. Symbolic divination systems, such as tarot, Runes, Ogham or other lots, attempt to create systems that accurately reflect the worlds. By reflecting them they participate in them, and thus when such symbols are randomized, the magician expects them to fall into patterns that reflect the world as it is. From those patterns the diviner reads her answers.
While modern thought will tend to see all of this as a mechanical process of impersonal forces tradition has always held that the spirits are closely involved. It is entirely consistent with tradition to see divination as a process by which the spirits guide the relevant symbols into their relevant positions for our readings, using their superior vision and understanding to see the forces surrounding our questions. While we can attempt to work our magic by our personal power and wisdom alone, any such efforts are greatly enhanced by appeals to the proper spirits. The simplest means of doing this is to invoke the aid of the deities proper to system in use. For the Ogham the proper deities are Ogma, for whom the alphabet is named, and Manannan, who is said to be the keeper of the letters. There is an invocation given in the ritual section which can be used as is or can be inspiration for your own words.
The third basic principle of divination is the native power of intuition of the human mind. Whatever the mechanism is which produces the pattern of symbols in a divination it is human intuition that allows us to turn a series of hints and reflections into a coherent narrative that reveals truth. Some modern magicians assert that intuition is the whole reality of divination. It is true that when the mind is “tuned in” strongly, divination could be done with M&Ms or varieties of bottle caps. However both tradition and experience teach that omens are clearer when the symbol system if properly constructed and well understood by the diviner. So even as you are learning the intellectual meanings of your symbol system you should be carefully pursuing your meditation, offerings to the spirits and trancework, and the cultivation of the Open Eye trance.
The Open Eye
The skill that you are developing in Open Meditation can be directly applied to the work of seership. You are learning to allow your thoughts and mental impressions to flow freely through your mind without attachment. This attitude can also be applied to your sense perceptions. It is simple to begin at your Home Shrine. When you have settled into Open meditation, open your eyes and gaze upon your Shrine. Allow your visual input to simply rest upon your mind. Maintain your focus on your breath, or whatever focus you employ. Let your gaze widen, to see the entire surface of the Shrine at once. Do not focus on any one element of the Shrine; do not fail to see any element of the Shrine. Do not allow any thinking about the Shrine to cling in your mind. It may be that useful ideas will occur to you – note them and return to simple focused attention.
After a little practice you should try the same thing out of doors. In the same way, find a place where a vista of several elements is visible. Find your center and focus into your meditation. Open your eyes and experience the reality of what you see without consideration or evaluation. In this state of mind you may be shown omens, and it is in this state of mind that we seek omens, open to the flow of event.
As we will discuss in our instructions on practical divination this same Open Eye is useful when you are evaluating a reading. Once you have thoroughly assimilated the symbols of a system, observing the pattern with the Open Eye can allow your deeper awareness to form patterns and understandings about a reading beyond the simple meaning and sequence of the symbols.

The Dunwich Horror Remake

Amazingly, the new Dunwich Horror flick, with Jeff Combs as Wilbur Whateley and Dean Stockwell as Henry Armitage is not only out, but it's premiering on the Syfy Channel this Sunday at 7pm!! "A new adaptation of the classic Lovecraft tale is set in Louisiana and tells the story of several scholars headed by Henry Armitage who discover the secret to destroying mysterious, other-worldly beings that threaten humankind. Jeff plays Wilbur Whateley, part of a strange, inbred family who with the help of the dreaded tome, The Necronomicon, helps unleash these beings on to the world."

This won't be perfect - it looks like the Necronomicon is the Simon book, and I doubt there's enough special effects money to do Wilbur's brother justice. Still, it's my single fave HPL tale, so I'm excited to see a new version.

How did this happen and me almost miss it?!? Only my diligent monitoring of the program guide on my dvr prevented a tragic miss on this one. I had blogged this early this year, but I was still expected 2010 release date. Weird to have it going direct to TV, but nice to have it coming out on my birthday : ).

Hope it doesn't suck...

Dark Fantasy Reads

‘Tis the season for spookiness. Does that bother me, as a Pagan? In that I hold the Dead sacred, and honor then in every season, and in that I also find various horned and clawed and winged ‘nature spirits’ holy, and have been and remain, I suppose, a witch, is there a reason to be put off of all the funny spookiness and fake-evil Hollywood fantasy of the US Halloween?
Hells no.
In some future Samhain perhaps I’ll write about the sacred customs of masking, and depiction of dangerous land-wights, and the lore of the walking dead. I could write about how we could bring all that together with the north-american pop-horror scene in a way that might give us an angle into pop culture…
Never mind that now, I’m going to just catch you up on some pop-literature reads that really impressed me recently. The so-called ‘horror’ genre is maturing nicely, in my opinion. I know that Ms. Kiernan, below, doesn’t even want the label, so I’m referring to this stuff as ‘Dark Fantasy” They actually range from down-and-dirty horror to quasi-mythic adventures with plenty of gore. All of them are characterized by being long, detailed stories, by using story elements that I dig, including quasi-authentic occultism, Euro-lore and Lovecraft’s bits. All of them made me really want the next book in the series, and be sorry (if shaken) when they were over.
• The Pine Deep trilogy by Jonathan Maberry

Ghost Road Blues
Dead Man's Song
Bad Moon Rising
Here’s something you don’t see every day – a horror ‘trilogy’ as tightly constructed and sequential as any fantasy series. The three books comprise what is really a single story, though the first two novels do offer reasonably satisfying conclusions. This gives the author the opportunity to really tell a story, to write the internal point-of-view of several characters in detail, and build suspense continuously. This is combined with a folklorist’s knowledge of actual nasty-liche lore from eastern Europe and Germany, an american musicological interest in hoodoo and Mississippi blues, and a lovely link with a historical character to create one hell of a tale of horror, terror and occult adventure.
The books tell the story of Pine Deep, an exurban tourist-trap community in southern Pennsylvania. Pine Deep has become known as the Halloween town thanks to the efforts of the current generation of town leaders, friends since boyhood. A huge haunted hayride attraction serves as an early centerpiece, and the town hosts a regional Halloween street party. Into this season comes a wave of fear and death. One of Maberry’s strengths is his ability to draw his characters. He presents a dozen characters in great detail, some heroes, some villains, slowly revealing their layers through the first book, all well-developed as human figures, at least at first.
The supernatural horror is always lurking, but takes until near the end of the first book to begin to become visible. However no pages are wasted, and it’s all fascinating set-up for the more overt evils of the later story. The length gives the author the chance to do some classic scenes in detail – the Evil House, the Terrifying Backstory, the Haunted Swamp all get first-class treatments. While perhaps the later two books are not quite as perfectly paced as the first, the payoff is all one could expect - a fully produced cinematic blowoff of just the pulpy sort I like.
This is my A1 recommendation for a Halloween read this year, if you want one.

• The Deacon Silvey books – by Caitlin R. Kiernan
Threshold
Low Red Moon
Daughter of Hounds
I’ve liked each and every thing I’ve read by this author, but my favorite stories are these very weird tales of a human family’s interaction over generations with the beings that Lovecraft called ‘ghouls’. In HPL’s tales the ghouls are a race of corpse-eaters, huge, dogman-like and crusted with mould and filth, who dwell in tunnels beneath both our earth and that of the Dreamlands. In the most famous appearance in “Pickman’s Model" it becomes clear that ghouls may mate with humans, make hybrids, and take some of those hybrids back below with them, to become a next generation. A lovely combination of the changeling with Lovecraft’s constant theme of the Monster Is Me.
Kiernan totally gets all that, and has built a level of detail around these beings beyond what Lovecraft wrote, but not beyond what he implied. The stories revolve around the characters of Deacon Silvey, a fairly powerful psychic who drinks fairly powerfully, and his love and life with Chance Matthews, a lovely young paleontologist. The first book gives us their unlikely pair-bonding, and the ‘family issues’ that ensue, as they bear and raise a child are a subtle expression of Lovecraft’s themes of the Other breaking through into the common. All of this rather subtly leads to revelations of the under-dwellers. The third book is pretty much kick-ass occult adventure, though there’s plenty of weirdness, too.
This is probably my favorite post-Mythos fiction lately. Kiernan writes Lovecraft’s themes about thoroughly modern characters (including women, thank the Goddesses). She makes a nice mix of visceral shock with occult spookiness, drawing on her own knowledge of traditional witchcraft and magic. From cosmic horror to spell-and-shotgun, these are a good read.
• The Stephen Raszer books – by A.W. Hill
Enoch’s Portal
The Last Days of Madame Rey
Nowhere Land
I’ll have a little less to say here, because I’ve only read one of these – “The Last days of Madame Rey”. That much is enough to give me that telltale feeling of wanting more. “Last Days” is a tale of a ‘psychic detective’ and his efforts to recover a rich man’s son from a dangerous far-right military cult on the slopes of Mt Shasta. Within that premise the reader is taken for ride of mythic proportions, while hardly ever straining the boundary of what we might call fantasy.
In theme and incident I was reminded of the fiction of Robert Anton Wilson. UFOs meet Landspirits, tarot meets the ancient middle-east meet the yetis of Hyperborea – Icke fans, sorry – no lizardmen actually appear in the novel. The characters include scientists, devoted assistants, romani tribesfolk, Moroccan Jews and a psychic stripper.
The plot is adventure - plenty of lead flies, psychic power is used, many weird things occur. Even more interesting, perhaps, is the depiction of the spiritual journey of Stephan Raszer (not his real name…); a former actor, he’s had an illumination, rather literally, and now he must devote himself to his personal search. On the way he can make a few bucks in the anti-cult game. I greatly look forward to reading more of this author’s odd brain, and Stephan’s personal journey.
• The Age of Misrule – by Mark Chadbourn
World’s End
Darkest Hour
Always Forever
Here we come as close as we’re getting to ‘fantasy’ genre material. Once again, I’ve finished only the first two books, but will certainly read the thirds. The writing is engaging and the themes are among my faves. The core theme is common enough in fantasy thinking – the Old Gods are returning. The difference is the author’s fine depiction of what a total change in the fabric of reality, such as might accompany a return to the age of myth, might mean for the world as we know it. Here we see another version of some of the Illuminatus! themes. The first book especially is about the veils of daily, work-a-day life being drawn away, to reveal a new reality that was previously unperceived. This being dark fantasy, this isn’t always particularly good news.
The author makes Celtic myth and legend his motif, and it is the Fomor demons that first return to the mortal world. The first book shows us the ‘assembling of the company’ as five regular joes and janes are drawn together. Once again the author really manages to show us a modern mind making accommodation with the new dangers and challenges of a world driven by what amounts to magic. The heroes must gather the necessaries and do the spell to bring back the Shining Ones in the first book, but the Gods, when they return, are as alien as the Fomor to modern mortals – if prettier.
As the heroes pursue their deeds (on perhaps a trifle clockworky timetable) we see a variety of small depictions of the return of magical and mythic life, as the shadows and fields are once again filled with dangerous wights, and humans begin to make new deals with the nobles of the Shining Courts. The pace of the first two books gallops, but unless our heroes manage to turn back the tide, we see the new age stretching out into the foreseeable future. I have been especially pleased at the slow revelation and/or discovery of what operative magic may now be able to do.

Well, that’s plenty to keep you. Put on your rubber horns and have a fun Halloween season, and the blessings of the Dead be upon you.

A Meditation on the Lord of Wisdom

Here's the next in the set of meditations and essays that I'm doing to examine potentials for 'mystical' meaning in ADF's Order of Ritual. For these first efforts, I decided to create visualization and contemplation meditations for the deities, while using essays and less 'worshipful' excercises for the abstract principles. I'll be writing some exercises for the Three Hallows directly. In the meantime here's the partner work to the Earth Mother item given below.

Let the Druid come before the Shrine, and enter a basic trance. Work a simple opening rite and compose the Vision of the Lord of Wisdom, thus:
• Envision the Lord of Wisdom, the Keeper of Gates, before you. See his towering figure, huge above a crossroad in the mist, feet floating above the road. He is slender and strong, dressed only in an open robe of white that billows in the moving air. His face is youthful, but his long hair and beard are snowy white. His left hand is raised, palm forward, and in his right hand he bears a shining white wand with a flame at its tip.
• Around his head shines a nimbus of every color and pattern, filled with every sign and letter of wisdom, shining around his being. His forehead shines with a wondrous light, with a flickering flame in the center. He stands at the crossroad, and you see that every road of it stretches away to another crossroad, and another. At each the Lord stands, in reflection outward, standing at the Center of All Ways, the Fire at the Center of the World.
Make a simple offering of whiskey or incense, or as you can, nine times, as you recite this hymn three times:
Lord of Wisdom
Wanderer on the Roads
Keeper of Gates and Ways
Priest of the Sacred Grove
I make due offering to you
(Offering given)
Because you teach wisdom
Because you guide spirits
Because you reveal secrets
I make due offering to you
(Offering given)
Lord of the Twilight
I worship your cunning
Keeper of Gates
I worship your might
Teacher of Heroes
I worship your wisdom
Lord of Secret Knowledge, inspire my mind with the Elder Ways
Keeper of gates, accept my sacrifice!
Renew your vision of the Gatekeeper and abide for a while in contemplation of that vision. Then proceed thus:
• Contemplate the shining presence of the Lord of Wisdom for a time. When his presence feels real to you then envision yourself seated at the crossroad with the gatekeeper behind you, his aura surrounding and interpenetrating you. You gaze along the roads and you see yourself at every crossing point, your awareness extending outward along the Infinite Paths. Feel your extending presence, out through the whole Web of Worlds. Abide for a while in contemplation of this vision.
• When you are ready, allow the whole vision, the Gatekeeper, the Web and your own form to shrink down and to become equal to your own head. Let the wisdom, knowledge and cleverness, the freedom to pass every barrier be concentrated in you. Feel the presence of the Gatekeeper shining in you, within the boundaries of your seated form. Abide for a while in contemplation of this vision.
• Finally, allow the image to grow again, bringing all the reflections of yourself firmly together in your material presence. Allow the form of the Gatekeeper to grow larger and larger, attenuating to become one with the light and air.
Renew your center, balancing all once again within you, and recite a simple ending charm, such as:
The blessings of the Holy Ones be on me and mine
My blessings on all beings, with peace on thee and thine
The Fire, the Well, the Sacred Tree
Flow and Flame and Grow in me
Thus do I remember the work of the Wise.

Occult Bollywood

It's possible that you won't thank me for pointing out this movie. I ordered Goddess from BBuster on-line, because I have no problem risking zero dollars on a flick that gets 1 1/2 stars with a description like: A wealthy and handsome gentleman falls for a charming and beautiful woman without realizing that she is actually the snake goddess Devi in disguise in this sumptuous take on the classic Hindu fable. Realizing that her mortal lover is in danger of attack from the malevolent snake deity Dantra, Devi does everything in her power to keep him safe from harm.

So, this flick, popular throughout SE Asia, apparently, is over 2 1/2 hours long, and the first hour has only a little cool stuff. The insipid melodrama of two Indian families is fast-forwardable, but the scene in which the Serpent-Devi arrives on earth in the totally psychedelic vimana, strays from her giggly-hot serpent-devi companions and is attacked by the indeterminate rakshasa type is a taste of more to come. The father of the key family sacrifices his own life to save our wayward Devi, and she becomes the guardian angel of the family.

The cool thing about this flick is the importance and depiction of Hindu (and totally Saivite) ritualism, including some directly practical-magic rites. The Snake-God and his Devi daughters are the good guys, and the demonic fellow gets some excellent footage using his tantrik (not sexual) rites to summon his hideous even-demonier god. The film culminates in a double-devotion rite, in which the mortal woman does ritual in her home while the demi-goddess (surely a 'daimon' by euro-standards) works bigger ritual in a mythic locale - all visually satisfying and culturally fascinating, to my particular sort of geekery.

The musical footage during the rites is very nice - the subtitles are minimalist, but the hymns are recognizable if you know that sort of thing. The bollywood musical love-song stuff seems lame by bollywood standards, but the visual effects are pure color and light, even thiongs appear and disappear by the most usual sort of stop-footage.

Anyway, worth seeing to find the footage of ritual and magic. Be of stout heart, and get through the first hour...

Self & Psyche in Druidic Ritual Symbolism

Pt 2 - The Two Powers and Three Realms
This is the next article in the series of attempted 'mysticism' things, based on our Druidic Order of Ritual. The first one part is the Earth Mother meditation posted here previously. This one is based on the 'honoring the Center' portion of the rites, as expressed in our Three Hallows of Fire, Well and Tree.

As we enter our second quarter-century it is perhaps time to begin a new phase in our spiritual practice and discussion. We have refined and focused our ritual order, linking it firmly with Indo-European concepts of cosmos. I think we can move beyond our current understandings to find new layers of meaning. It may be that this has been going on quietly in our Groves and hearths for some time, but I’ll make an effort to lay out some of my own thinking on how we can find deeper experience and meaning in our ritual symbolism.
It is common in traditional Paganism for spiritual techniques and symbols to have several levels of interpretation. For instance we can understand our Order of Ritual first as a feast that the house or clan sets for the Gods and Spirits. The Fire cooks the food, the Well gives drink. On a deeper level we can understand that the physical realities of the rite are spiritual and mythic as well. The Well is the Eye of the Underworld Waters, the Fire the Light of the Heavens. The Grove becomes one with the Center of Worlds. In these essays we will examine another level of interpretation, in which the symbols of the Order of Ritual are applied to the human psyche – the body/mind/spirit complex. In this I accept that ancient maxim best known to us from the late classical age: “That which is above is as that which is below, and that which is below is as that which is above.” By applying cosmic realities to personal realities I hope to find insights toward a Pagan Druidic mystical and spiritual path.
The Primal Powers and the Vertical Axis
The powers of the proto-cosmos – the Underworld Waters and the Fire of the Heavens – can have deep meaning in the personal self as well as in the rites. The Two Powers find expression as central functions of the psyche. They can be the root of much further analysis and practice.
The Underworld Power finds expression first in the material self as the inheritance from our genetic ancestors. The Underworld is the place in which all that has come before is boiled up and boiled down into its basic elements, to feed the rise of new forms. We as individuals rise from the chance of combining DNA – from the Womb of the Deep.
On a psychological level we can think of the Underworld as referring first to the place where body meets mind – the oldest and most ‘primitive’ impulses including hunger, reproduction, territoriality, pack-hierarchy and fight-or-flight. Even though modern humans have some ability to manage these impulses they continue to influence our behavior even in the most civilized of circumstances.
Just as the Underworld Waters bear all the raw nutrients that remain from that which has passed away, so in our mind the memory is the vasty deep into which our experiences are dissolved. Science now knows that memory is not a filing system in which events are clearly preserved. Rather it is more like a bog, in which events are sometimes dissolved, sometimes preserved, and sometimes sprout into living things. In this way the memory is a fine expression of the Underworld Power.
On a spiritual level we carry within our own flesh and spirit the power of the Dead. Our inheritance makes our very face and form an idol of our ancestors, and ancient religion plainly understood ‘the blood’ as carrying the power of our lineage. This presents many opportunities, including transpersonal memory, access to increased personal potential and the mysteries of the Road of the Dead themselves. Those roads lead finally to the Thrones of the Gods of the Deep. Euro-Pagan cultures show us images of the King and Queen of the Underworld, who welcome the Dead and grant peace, rest and, as needed, justice. We hear that the Celts said that they were descended from the Underworld Father. Among the Hellenes and the Norse it is the Underworld Queen who is regarded most highly. These mighty Powers exist by reflection within our own psyches as surely as they live in the Halls Below.
The Heaven Power finds expression in our body as the genetic pattern that makes each of us unique. We grow out of the long history of mating and mixing that preceded our own births, and the genes of our parents came together with a variety of potentials. It is the power of organization and quickening from the Heavens that assembled each of us from the potentials of chance, and our flesh is a combination of Underworld potentials formed by Heavenly shaping. In this way the Heaven Power is just as far outside of our ‘normal’ awareness as the Underworld – it happens whether or not we watch it or direct it.
However, we ourselves possess the Power of Shaping, to one degree or another, in our ability to shape matter and, perhaps, spirit by our skill and wit. The Heaven Power in us allows us to focus our awareness to make patterns and to shape both material and spiritual forms. Equally it finds expression in our human power of reason. Supported by the more complex structures of the brain we are able to plan, design, execute and support our will. For many of us these ability lie largely in potential – spiritual work can lead us to develop our access to the Power of the Sky.
On a spiritual level we carry in ourselves the Divine Fire of the Gods. The principle of Cosmos, of the Rightness of Things causes us both to exist as individuals and to be players in the Game of Worlds. The Heaven Power offers us a transpersonal view of the patterns of existence that we must strive to perceive and on which we may act when we can grasp it.
The Heavens wheel above us, shining their Light on all existence. In the same we have in us an ability to view our own beings, to step above our daily processes and see into our own patterns and habits. On that Inner Mountaintop we can survey our minds and our hearts, and perhaps find a perspective that sees the road through time, from decision to decision, event to event, offering us a more divine perspective on the flow of life.
In the highest halls of the heavens the Bright Ones are enthroned. The Father of All and the Queen of the Gods, the Thunder Hero and the Dawn Goddess all dwell in the Upper Realms. In much Pagan lore the dwelling of the Gods themselves is in the Sky Realm, though there are always hidden roads that link it with the places of the Gods Below. In their High Halls the Gods meet in council, making the plans that guide the worlds.
The Middle World finds symbolic expression as the World Tree or World Pillar in our Groves, rooted in the dark waters, crowned in the Heavens’ gold. We can conceive of All That Is growing, fruiting, passing away and nourishing the future, between the depths and the heights. The World Tree in this way is like our own individual beings – the product of the action of the Two Powers upon the forces and forms of the Middle Realm.
The question of the nature and identity of our personal existence is central to the work of mysticism. In order to seek the transpersonal it seems worthwhile to develop an understanding of our own person. Every tale of the mystic journey begins with the hero-to-be choosing to leave their lives behind. In the same way we may have to think of the spiritual journey as, in some way, a leaving behind of the ‘self’ that we have built for ourselves over the years.
The Middle Realm is a place of unending variety, and every manifest thing springs from the effects of the organizing power of the Light and the massive potential of the Darkness. So, in our personal mind, the thing we commonly perceive as “me” is not in fact the entirety of our being. Rather our daily perceived identity is more of a floating point-of-view. It - as we might say, “I” - wander in the Middle-Realms of the mind, encountering objects and beings – thoughts and memories, perhaps – and reacting to them. When we sleep our point-of-view wanders in the quasi-sensory realms of dream. When we wake, that same point-of-view functions as our sense of “me”, as we move through our daily lives and through our waking minds. If we are sick or injured we may dwell in our pain, when we love we dwell in our joy. In one moment we may be firmly in our bodies, at other times we drift in the abstractions of our minds. We construct our sense of ourselves out of our impressions, habits and inclinations, a figure built of memory and idea. We come to identify this figure with the body we see in the mirror, but the self is so much more.
The Underworld and Heavens are reflected in us as often unobserved portions of the personal mind. The ancient tales show the journey of the seeker through realms strange and distant, though much of the ‘action’ may take place in the Middle Realm. So the mystical seeker sets out “into” a mind that is rather like the land – tangled or cultivated, civilized and savage. We make our way through it by ‘our’ wits.
So, we dwell in the Middle Places of our minds, in our constructed “character” or “persona”. We have some limited awareness of a greater existence, and the connection of our commonly manifest presence with the Heights and Depths of the world sometimes gives us hints of something greater. If we are not open to that intuitive awareness, which varies widely in untrained individuals, this can lead to confusion, and difficulty in making wise decisions. We feel the impulses of the greater world, but dwell within our constructs, and thus we find that instinct often conflicts with will, memory conflicts with ideals, inertia conflicts with intention.
When we bring the Sacred Fire and Holy Well into the material world through ritual, we have an opportunity to contemplate that work as opening our own Middle Realm awareness – our common sense of self – to the presence of the Deep Memory and the Higher Reason. When we work the Two Powers meditation we powerfully direct our common mind to open to those greater psycho-spiritual forces. When we hallow the presence of the Fire and Water during our sacrifices or on our shrines we can take that into our contemplations as a catalyst, opening for us a fresh and clear access to a greater degree of our own spiritual nature.