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from Karin Wanderer Learns

Every 2 weeks I post a new art challenge prompt! The new #KWPrompts is #Turtle

Watercolor sea turtle with green shell, brown carapace, & greenish brown body swimming happily.

Turtles Are Magic

  1. Turtles bury their eggs in nests on beaches. As soon as the eggs hatch (roughly 2 months later), the hatchlings dig out of their nest. This process generally takes a few days. Then all the tiny turtles rush down to the water & out into the open ocean.
  2. The temperature in the nest has a huge effect on sea turtles. Cooler incubation temperatures produce male hatchlings and warmer incubation temperatures produce female hatchlings. Temperatures that fluctuate between the two extremes will produce a mix of male and female hatchlings.
  3. Turtles were around more than 200 million years ago – they lived alongside dinosaurs.
  4. These days, scientists recognize seven species of marine turtle: Hawksbill, Green Turtle, Loggerhead, Leatherback, Olive Ridley, Green Flatback, & Kemp's Ridley. Six of these are officially threatened with extinction. It is assumed the Green Flatback is also threatened, but they are incredibly reclusive. There's simply not enough information on the flatback to know how at risk they are.
  5. Marine turtle species vary greatly in size. The smallest, Kemp’s ridley, measures around 27 inches (70cm) long and weighs up to 88 lbs (40kg). The largest, the leatherback, can reach up to 70 inches (180cm) long and weigh 1100 lbs (500kg).
  6. Leatherback turtles are soft-shelled turtles. All other sea turtles have hard shells.
  7. The Green Sea Turtle is the largest of all the hard-shelled sea turtles. Many different turtles have green shells or skin, but Green Turtles are called that because their diet of sea grass & algae actually turns their body fat green.
  8. When sea turtles are actively swimming, they have to surface for air every few minutes. When they are floating calmly, they can stay underwater for hours! This is how they often sleep, among the rocks on the ocean floor.

Stylized watercolor turtle seen from the top down, all in soft greens with indigo on the shell.

You can make any type of turtle for this challenge. I will probably stick to sea turtles, since I am just a tiny bit completely obsessed with marine animals! Do you have a favorite turtle? Share it with us! Let's spend the next 2 weeks making terrific art

Each challenge lasts 2 weeks from the day this post was made. You can submit a new picture every day, work on one picture for 2 weeks, or post pics randomly. This is the most laid-back art challenge on the internet, & that means you have plenty of time to make your art however you want.

Use #KWPrompts #Turtle & tag me @KarinWanderer so I see it!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky Cara

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- beginner to expert, renaissance painting to rough sketch! No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed. Have a fantastic day, post something for my art challenge, see you next week!

Watercolor green sea turtle tranquilly swimming by.

 
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from Magicka Ovriana

At some point of the journey there comes a time when you feel like you're ready to cut lose from just reading and talking, proceeding to actually doing something – in this case, to performing rituals. There are plenty of pre-made rituals available in books and on the net, so it's only the question of taking the texts in one hand and starting to ritualize? Well, that is one approach and nobody is saying that it couldn't be a workable and giving one. However, this time the approach is somewhat different – one stating that it's good to not only know how something is done, but also why.

1. Know the Backgrounds

When you're practicing your religiosity and magick alone you are lacking (out of your own initiative or simply due to the lack of a suitable group) people who would be there teaching you the basics hands-on. So, your own initiative is of prime importance. Texts and descriptions of rituals do tell much, but they don't always explain the backgrounds any closer.

To start a ritual project, you can head out to research with the help of various sources the very meanings of a ritual. Why you're supposed to say what is said in the ritual and why you're supposed to do what is said you should do. In every single better constructed ritual the words and gestures mean something and you will get so much more out of the ritual when you are aware of the meanings. Do not settle for knowing the right words – know why you are supposed to say them. Do not (for example) just call on certain deities – find out why you are calling them in this particular ritual. Do not think gestures are just gestures – know what they mean. All this may take time, but it is worth it.

2. Learn the Ritual

You can do a ritual while holding the script in front of your nose, but it won't be that smooth.

You can split the ritual into suitable sized pieces, rehearsing them one by one until you know them by heart. This way you can eliminate the “but… do I really remember what I'm supposed to do?” -factor by the time you move to actually doing the ritual and concentrate on the actual rite. Rehearsing and refining gestures can make a nice evening schedule and going over the texts in your mind can give you something worthwhile to do while you are, say, waiting for the bus to arrive. When the little pieces are going smoothly, you can combine them to larger fragments and finally piece all the fragments together to form a whole.

When you are at that stage, you can go through the whole ritual “without the spirit” – that is, without trying to achieve anything other than rehearsing – as many times as you need.

3. Make It Yours

When you have actually performed the ritual so many times it goes smoothly and gives the results it is supposed to give; it's time to make the ritual yours. In this context, making the ritual yours doesn't mean developing your own versions of the texts and gestures, as writing your own ritual is quite another subject indeed. You could compare this to the world of acting, as rituals could be likened to plays. Psychodramas, one could say. The same play can be performed in a multiple of ways, even if nobody changed a single word in it. Each actor past the stage of mimicking another actor's style brings in his or her own interpretation, making the role alive.

When you're only starting out, you are always more or less a “mimicker” while doing rituals other people have written. With the confidence brought on by doing you can little by little develop into a “virtuoso” of your own religiosity and magick working.

#ritual #magick #paganism

 
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from Karin Wanderer Learns

The current #KWPrompts is #Seabird. (Find more info about the KWPrompts art challenge here.) My drawings of penguins inspired someone to talk a bit of trash about puffins, saying “Nothing that looks that much like a penguin should be flying. It is morally wrong.” Well, I'm not here to judge morality. I'm here to infodump about puffins & recommend bird art books. Lucky you!

Ink drawing of Puffins cover the page! One puffin stands, swims & dances with a mouthful of fish. Another puffin swims & stands with a mouthful of fish. Both puffins hold "hands", looking happy. Also a baby puffin (a puffling) & a white egg.

Puffins Are Magic

  1. Puffins, like the penguins they resemble, are amazing swimmers
  2. Puffins, unlike the penguins they resemble, are decent fliers. In spite of looking like roly-poly stuffed animals, they can reach up to 55 mph in the air.
  3. Baby puffins are called pufflings & they are every bit as fluffy & cute as their name implies.
  4. Puffin bills are serrated, allowing them to hold onto fish they have already caught while grabbing even more. This is why you so often see pictures of puffins with beaks full of fish
  5. Puffin beaks literally grow a more colorful outer shell during mating season. Afterwards they shed their brightly decorative layers & spend the winter with plain orange beaks.

Watercolor puffin sits happily on the ground, enjoying the day.

Good Books for Birds

  1. Painting Birds: Expressive Watercolour Techniques by Sarah Stokes
  2. The Laws Guide to Drawing Birds by John Muir Laws (I linked directly to the bird books, but the whole John Muir Laws website is worth checking out. It has lots of free drawing guides & tutorials.)
  3. I have heard good things about Drawing Birds by Raymond Sheppard but the wait list at the library is so long I have not managed to read it yet.

#NotSponsored

Watercolor puffin standing on the beach waves to their friends in the water. A gull with a fish held in their beak is about to enjoy lunch.

Join the art challenge!

Use #KWPrompts #Seabird & tag @KarinWanderer so I see it!

Pick your social & post your art Mastodon Bluesky Cara

This art challenge lasts until next Tuesday. You can submit a new picture every day, work on one picture the whole time, or post pics randomly. This is the most laid-back art challenge on the internet, & that means you have plenty of time to make your art however you want.

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- beginner to expert, renaissance painting to rough sketch! No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed. Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, we'll be back to our regularly scheduled Tuesday post next week, see you then!

 
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from RMiddleton

I suggest that the United States needs to do much more than elect better people under the current constitution. A peaceful revolution is called for.

The right is right. Under the US constitution and historical tradition, the right is in keeping with American values. Liberals are wrong when we have said:

America is exceptional

America is the greatest country on earth

Bigotry, hate; and murder are not who we are as Americans

America values equality

None of the above are true. All of the above are wishful. Trump and his cronies are the heirs to the slave-owning founders, to Polk, to Jackson, to Jim Crow, to Woodrow Wilson, to FDR, to Nixon, to Reagan, and to the Supreme Court for all but a very few years.

The United States has never stood for equality. I'm not so much saying this in anger as with a clear eyed coldness. The nice words in the revered documents are lies. They are marketing materials. It's quite clear that the professions of equality are lies; simply look at the laws.

I will expand on this soon. I'm tired. Hugs!

 
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from RMiddleton

I live inside my mind. I view my number one task as survival. Before I can do anything else well I must sustain myself. What am I? A consciousness in a body. But I think more accurate to say a conscious body. My senses supply information that I interpret using emotion, aided by memory.

I am sitting in the sun enjoying a recording of a violin concerto by Saint-Saëns as I write this. Why so I like the sound of this music? And the nearby splashing water that I can hear? Why do I dislike the sounds of loud motors, and shouting, and most human broadcasts?

I try to keep the election far from my mind. I'm a white man. If I wanted I could pass as straight. I fantasize myself organizing a meeting in which I, crying no doubt, say to a group of Trump voters: “I think of you as evil people. And I am scared of you. Why am I wrong to feel this way?” The responses that I imagine would be defensive, righteous indignation, and filled with factual errors they all learned from intentionally lying sources. And they would be demonstrating their own emotions in response.

If I think anything like this I just get stuck. It's been this way for decades. It's why “good whites” cannot reach our relatives, neighbors, and coworkers.

I can't get stuck. To go on I focus on the Saint-Saëns, followed by They Might Be Giants, and everything else I'm checking out from the library to keep my spirit afloat. James Baldwin. Poetry. Abolitionist history. A film about fascist Italy. Aretha Franklin.

I'm changing me. Change the world? Maybe tomorrow...

 
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from Magicka Ovriana

A Creation Story

In the beginning there was Chaos. Chaos was not being, nor non-being. There was no light, nor darkness, no depth nor undepth, nor height nor unheight. There was absolute nothing, filled with potential to everything and the Potential and the Nothing were One.

Ages went by as they will always do and the Chaos of nothing and everything in one and neither stirred. Nobody and everybody knows why Chaos stirred – it was what was to be.

The Will to Live was born, but with hir was born hir ever-present twin, the Inevitable Death, as there will be no life without death, nor death without life, as there is no Light without Darkness, nor Night without Day. Neither Will to Live nor Inevitable Death are good nor evil.

Then Will to Live and the Inevitable Death breathed onto and into each others, making love to each other, with the blessing of the Chaos who never seeked to be Divided, nor to be Unified because with Hir everything is already nothing and everything.

And they created all forms of life and all forms of death as none will be without the other.

So the Will to Live created ever new ways to live and the Inevitability of Death silenced them, but Death is always a step behind the Life, as Death will not take the yet unliving, as there is nothing for Death to take. Nor will Life be born without the yet undied, as there is nothing for Life to grow on.

Thus will the dance of Life and Death ever go on, until Chaos stirs again.

And Chaos looked at it all, and said -

I am the Beginning of it All. I am at the Unborn and the Undying. I am not evil. I am not good. I am. I was here before there was here and will be here after it All has ended. Fear me not, though I know you will as the fear of me is in you lest you look beyond the Will to Live and the Inevitable Death. Embrace me and never stay the same.

#Paganism #Deities

 
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from RMiddleton

I love what I do so much. A snarketarian might say, “What the fick do you do? You have no daily job that produces income!” And that is true.

Here's what I do:

Now I'm waiting for a telehealth call from my pain doctor. Improving my physical condition is essential for me to do anything else. I'm happy to be working on this goal with help.

I'm talking to friends and new friends and neglected friends and physician assistants and neighbors and random folk — all with joy and respect. I'm not at my best every moment so I'd rate myself as spreading 93% joy. I see results in my effect on others.

I'm cleaning my house. A little every day. With joy. I'm keeping an assortment of plants alive. I'm inviting visitors over.

I'm cooking every meal at home, happily.

I'm walking and stretching every day.

I'm enjoying nature so much.

I'm celebrating human culture with books, videos, and music all free from the library. I'm so happy about that.

I may use equipment at the library to digitize some old family items. I feel good about that.

Is there more? What else is there?

I'm sharing my journey openly. I feel very satisfied with that evolution of my art practice.


What I'm not doing: feeling mad, sad, bitter, jealous, greedy, impatient, or bored.

I know how to be happy!

 
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from Karin Wanderer Learns

Every 2 weeks I post a new art challenge prompt! The new #KWPrompts is #Seabird Watercolor penguin marches onward. “Seabirds” are technically only one subset of marine birds, but all marine birds are welcome for this art challenge! Bring on your best penguins, albatross, petrels, gulls, pelicans, terns, puffins... Ever notice how many ocean birds begin with the letter P?

Did you know that water birds can go from swimming to flying without having to dry out first? Their feathers are coated in special oils and very dense, so they stay dry! (Pre-K book recommendation: Ducks Don't Get Wet by Augusta Goldin.) A waddle of penguin chicks

If you had asked me this morning if I had a favorite seabird, I would have said “No”, & I would have been a damned liar. Looking through my old work shows that that the only kind I've ever painted is penguins. I guess they win by default! Do you have a favorite seabird? Share it with us! Let's spend the next 2 weeks making terrific art

Each challenge lasts 2 weeks from the day this post was made. You can submit a new picture every day, work on one picture for 2 weeks, or post pics randomly. This is the most laid-back art challenge on the internet, & that means you have plenty of time to make your art however you want.

Use #KWPrompts #Seabird & tag me @KarinWanderer!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky Cara

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- beginner to expert, renaissance painting to rough sketch! No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed. Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you next week!

 
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from Poetry from a nonpoet

some poetry exercises from yesterdays class

So had my class last evening, missed last weaks and slipped out of the poets mindset, feel a bit more motivated now after doing last evenings class. Did some responses to other poems this is what i wrote.

Wonderings Paths following paths Wandering trails under woods, Scent of fresh damp leaves over streams, over fields, through shire and town Smell of fires burning. One step following another On the autumnal route, Cold chill feel of air on skin Plodding along on the trails forever For no sake but for the walk itself.

fagile life Fragility of life, Day in day out we breath, Breith after breith Go about a daily routine Have drama and joys Day in, day out we go about Not realising the fragility, Of are mortal coils.. We create a bubble of things, People and possessions, Activities to distract ourselves From the day in and day out Without being thankful, of truely Noticing are small insignificance The moment of now Then it's over.

Metamophosis Metamorphosis of seed to sapling to tree The ecosystem of growth all around Photosynthesis of light to energy The mycelium under the ground, Sharing its nutrients with trees above. Higher and far older than all other living things Mighty trees boroughs of sequoia and oaks Standing tall poking tree tops into the sky Mighty fortresses of nature Withstanding winds of gales, year in year out, Decade in decade out.

Disposable fashion The toxic waste of the worlds nations Pawned onto those in third world countries The toxic waste of a capitalist economy Forced onto an unwitting populus of the trendy Shameful fast fashion, faster than mcdonalds Half less tasty than the cardboard in bread. And far more tacky.

Got to use my 5 senses to discribe a place from memory for my homework. So need to set some time aside.

We are still using carol anne duffys bbc meastro course some useful infomation but glade i have a tutor too.

moving forward want to get into writing and reading pulp fantasy stuff so might do that here and rename the blog.

Thank you.

 
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from Magicka Ovriana

The general public is usually familiar mostly with the so called Olympian gods and goddesses along with a few others, but the Greek pantheon includes also other lessed known deities. Some of them were “lesser know” for even the ancient Greek, as there wasn't proper cult or organized worshipping connected to these deities. One of these is Khaos (Chaos). There's rather little information available in our time about Khaos, considering her part in the birth of the world and other deities in the Greek mythology.

The earliest written references on Khaos can be found in the book “Theogony” by Hesiod, who lived in the 700's before common era. In Theogony, Hesiod describes the birth of the world and the Gods, as well as Greek mythology.

The word “Khaos” means space, gap, darkness and void, referring to Khaos as that which is between heaven and earth. Khaos was also calles – albeit rarely – as Poros ('passage, contriver, intriguer') and Aeros ('air').

When the world begun, Khaos was there. She is the goddess who predates everything else – gods and even the world. After Khaos arose Gaia (earth), Eros (love) and Tartaros. Without a mate, Khaos gave birth to Erebos (darkness) and Nyx (night). From the love between these two, were born Aether (light) and Hemera (day; according to Bacchylides, Hemera's father is Khronos). Nyx also bore other children – Moros, Ker, Thanatos, Hypnos, the Oneiroi, Momos, Oizys, the Hesperides, the Keres, the Moirai, Nemesis, apate, Philots, Geras and Eris1, who are all spirits affecting human lives (daimones).

Hyginus, who wrote in Latin in the 100's, relates a slightly different story in his listing of gods Mythographi Fabularum Liber. He wrote: “Ex Caligine Chaos” – Khaos woas born out of moisture, fog. Hyginus continues to tell how out of Khaos and fog were born also Nox (Nyx), Dies (day, Hemera), Erebus (Erebos) and Aether. That is, Khaos is the mother of not only night and darkness, but also day and light.

Khaos with her offspring form the more “etheric” side of the world in the Greek mythology, consisting of deities of seasons, personifications of states of consciousness (from dreams to deaths) and spirits of feelings and states of mind. Some sources do say, that Khaos was originally an ancient goddess of ear, mist and fog.

There are few mentions of Khaos in addition to her role in the birth of the world. In his account of Zeus' fiery fight with the titans, Hesiod describes how an astonishing heat took over Khaos and how it seemed as though Gaia and Ouranos had rushed towards each others and met. This gives an impression of Khaos moving away from her usual place between earth and heaven. Later on Hesiod tells that titans who lost the battle are now residing behind the gloomy Khaos, far away from all the gods.

In his Birds, Aristophanes offers a glimpse of Khaos as something other than “the first one of all, who merely exists”. He gives and account of the beginning of times, when the only ones existing were Khaos, Nyx, the dark Erebos and the deep Tartaros. There was no earth, air or sky yet existing. The dark-winged Nyx laid and egg in the bosom of Erebos' endless depths and after times had passed, gold-winged Eros hatched from this egg. Eros made love with Khaos in Tartaros and Khaos has wings as golden as those of Eros. This union gave birth to the birds – the first ones to see the light. Birds tells about birds and at this point, relates the story from birds' point of view, so describing the gods as having bird-like wings makes sense. However, many Greek deities, especially those who descended from Khaos, were often depicted having wings, so Aristophanes' story can give you a clue of what Khaos might look like.

Khaos is also present in the story of Alkmene, the woman who got seduced by Zeus who took the form of her husband and who then bore Zeus' son Heracles. Zeus had just won the battle with the titans: the highest among the gods were now the Olympians and on the top-most spot was Zeus himself. However, he was well aware that those closest to Gaia's (the source calls them “relatives”) Okeanos (sea), Nyx and Khaos still existed, hiding and lurking at the far corners of the universe and that some day, the gods would be defeated like the titans were.

Later sources often describe Khaos as nothing but a chaotic mixture of the elements – lifeless and formless, nothing-yet. Khaos is described as merely a state before the world and order, not as a goddess or even a deity. Paraphrasing Ovid (from his book Metamorphosis): before there sea, earth or the heavens arrived, there was only the uniformly desolate Khaos, primitive and undeveloped. Khaos didn't achieve anything other than heaviness and just being a tangled mass of all the elements. These later accounts may be the result of the increasing importance of the Olympic gods in the expense of other, earlier gods. “Khaos as an impersonal nothingness, the beginning of it all but lifeless” is the description you are quite likely to run into in books dealing with Greek mythology (if there actually is any mention of her), as well as in general books on mythology.

What about Khaos today? Can Khaos be worshipped, honoured? Is it possible to include Khaos in one's own personal religiosity? I don't see any reason why not. Khaos may be “a goddess without myths”, but this doesn't make her “a non-existing goddess”. Neither does lack of historical cults worshipping her. Personal gnosis – one's own personal revelation and information derived from interacting with a deity – may get more importance in addition to historical information with Khaos and other deities like her, especially when compared to those gods where there is a large amount of information available in this day and age.

Khaos may seem primordial and maybe even distant, but even the ancient Greek didn't declare her dead. Why should we?

1) Moros – doom; Keres – death-spirits, personifications of violent death; Thanatos – death, personification of non-violent death; Hypnos – Thanatos' twin brother sleep; the Oneiroi – dreams, the most skillful and important out of thousand Oneiroi were Morpheus, Ikelos / Phobetor and Phantasos; Momos – mockery, blame, criticism (he was expelled from heaven for mocking the gods...); Oizys – pain, woe; the Hesperides – the three daughters if evening; the Moirai – the fates; Nemesis – anger and retribution; Apate – deceit; Philotes – affection, friendship; Geras – old age; Eris – discord. Eris, who is nowadays best known for being the “Goddess of Chaos” of especially Discordianists, is the grand-daughter of Khaos.

Sources:

  • Aristofanes: Birds
  • Hesiodus: Theogony
  • Hyginus: Mythographi fabularum liber
  • Ovidus: Metamorphoses

  • Bellingham, David: En Introduktion till Grekisk Mytologi

  • Leeming: Encyclopedia of Creation Myths

  • McLeigh, Kenneth: Myths and Legends of the World, the Complete Companion to all Traditions

  • online: Theoi project http://www.theoi.com/

#paganism #deities

 
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from humanissome

Streamed again this morning after a 2-week vacation. I thought it went well; I divided the stream into one more talking & one more quiet. During the quiet I listened to music as I cleaned & stuff, only occasionally talking to the camera. I thought I understood the twitch rules about copyright. Based on past experience it seemed they allowed it live & silenced it for replays. But no. I think they did something unexpected to my videos this morning that included music. They seem to have been deleted. I'll check tomorrow morning.

Usually as soon as I wake up I stream on https://www.twitch.tv/humanissome

 
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from Magicka Ovriana

Liber III vel Jugorum as a tool for self-control

When using magick, being able to control one's primary tool, oneself with all the different sides and features one has, is very important. By being able to harness one's whole essence including the mind, body and language to the working at hand gives the magick worker a more powerful set of tools than what a mage with less self-control and weaker self-awareness has.

One method of training yourself to be a more effective for magick is to use Aleister Crowley's Liber III vel Jugorum[1] as your tool. At the same time, you are also able to get yourself more into your own control – thinking what you are saying and doing, as well as controlling your thought patterns.

Jugorum, “book of the yoke” divides the fields to be trained into three beasts: the unicorn, the horse and the ox. All these should be yoked “in a triple yoke that is governed by One Whip” instead of having them running wildly. Jugorum can be used not only as a stand-alone practice, but also as a part of preparing for a larger workings; especially before starting more persevering and continuous operations requiring not only self-control but also self-awareness – for example larger invocation/evocation projects or starting to learn a new system/technique.

As a stand-alone practice Jugorum works well as a periodical “re-gaining self-control” and a working intended to be compared to previous results of practicing the Liber III. It can also be used as a changing point between one phase of life and another – to create an intermediate period of “no phase”, devoted to self-contemplation, in preparation for the next phase. Furthermore, this versatile exercise can be used to pulling oneself back together when practicing has turned sloppy and to stop a working that has started to pall on you or is going badly, in order to study possible reasons for things not going the way they are expected to go.

References towards being wild and unruly can be interpreted as pointing out how “automated” people usually are in their day-to-day life. Their speech is littered with unnecessary refrains like “you know” or simpler “umm”, as well as with fixed expressions and points of view. Certain stimuli trigger always the same kind of response, without thinking. Even manners repeat the same habits – you sit down and lift one knee over the other, fidget your pen or your hair… All in all, there are many kind of mannerisms you don't usually pay any attention to. Thoughts are ruled by old and tried trains of thought and strong but often unquestioned ideas of who “I am” and how “I” usually do things.

Jugorum's exercises make you pay attention to your own actions, remove what you've deemed unnecessary, map yourself and train yourself to be your own master. Each of the exercises last a week minimum and in addition to the exercises given in Liber III, Crowley advices you to make up your own exercises.

Jugorum isn't a quick route to magickal innovations or stronger capabilities and the results gained vary according to the goals set by each practitioner. However, the exercises do help along the way. There's no use in starting an exercise and then stopping in the middle of it, even though you might feel like you weren't gaining anything from it. Even though the changes would be small and even unnoticeable, in the long run (the only one that really matters) they can be remarkable.

Unicorn, Speech

Rule thy Speech! With the speech (and other communication) exercise, you start by picking a target which is then removed from use of language. In the first form of this exercise, you'll avoid a word you commonly use, for example “and”, “but” or “the”. In the second, you'll avoid using a certain language. In the third one, what's being removed is “self” – the every pronoun and adjective referring to first person. With each of these, you will not simply miss the word to avoid, you'll work your way around it.

The level of difficulty can be fine tuned from very easy to such difficulty where you need to shift the gear of your brain completely. Very easy – too easy to be of any practical use and also too easy to be in accordance to the spirit of Jugorum – would be, say, to choose to remove î or “oui” and then communicate solely in English. On the other end of the scale would be removing a whole set of concepts or means of expression from your speech. In any case, you should reconstruct the thought patterns affecting speech and to really pay attention to what you are about to say or write, before the words get out of your mind. The target should be a word, letter or concept (like “I”) you are using constantly, maybe even too often. For this exercise to be of use for you, do communicate with people as much as you usually. Spending a week alone and in silence gets you off easy, but you won't gain anything from it.

While following the speech part of Jugorum, you'll notice how much you are actually using a certain expression in your daily life without actually thinking about it. At the same time, you'll likely start noticing other people's methods of communication better then before, how much others are (over) using the expression you are avoiding – which is naturally where your attention will most likely be concentrating on in others – and how much of their communication is “automated”. Insights upon yourself and finding new points of view are rather common “by-products” from doing Jugorum. The over all results will vary according to the exercise and the practitioner.

My own standards set for myself when doing a communication exercise, be it Jugorum or Jugorum-based, is that people who are not aware of the exercise going on, would not notice anything being different from normal. Going around the target should happen skillfully enough to not draw any attention towards itself. The slightly longer pauses in speech can be noticed, but it shouldn't be too obvious as to get people asking questions.

Generally speaking, you'll just return to your normal language usage after the exercise. Exceptions from this rule are the occasions, when the target has been those manners of speech or expressions you intended to rid your speech from, completely or partly.

This kind of communication exercise is a useful tool for training, as language affects the mind, mind affects the reality, reality affects the language and vice versa.

Horse, Actions

Rule thine Action! The examples given in Liber III point your attention to ordinary everyday gestures and motions – the kind of which you don't usually pay any attention to. The first example advices avoiding lifting your left arm above your waist, the second mentions avoiding crossing your legs.

As the gestures are so common, controlling them can be surprisingly difficult. Our bodies “live their own lives” and small everyday motions come naturally. When you're thinking, your fingers may fidget with your pen. When you sit down, you'll adjust yourself to your favourite position. When you're feeling puzzled, you may start running your fingers through your hair. When your spouse walks by, you may give him a little pat on his bum, etc. Being aware of your own gestures brings along an extra loop of thinking to your daily life, even when there is only one gesture you are focusing on avoiding. When you're focusing on gestures that are usually controlled not by thought, but “come from your spine”, you are also training your mind to be more focused and alert.

You can use the horse-training part of Jugorum to train yourself out of addictions and other so called bad habits, but the results may be considerably weaker than using the same exercise for culling out automatic gestures for a week or more. If you're a caffeine addict, a cup of coffee may well feel worth the punishment you get from slipping. When it comes to bad habits, you are usually aware of them even before the exercise, so focusing your mind to concentrate on something you don't usually think about doesn't happen.

This exercise of gestures or motions helps to heighten awareness of your own body and to train it to act more according to your will. Extending your consciousness to the smallest gestures of your body fine tunes not only your mind, but also your body to be better in using magick. Many rituals include certain gestures and signs, which aren't there only to bring flamboyance to the ritual and to help the Mage to move from one point to another. By fine tuning your mind to be more aware of your body, you can gain more understanding of these gestures and make them more meaningful for you. You aren't just doing the gestures or signs, you are starting to be more aware of them and to experience their meanings on a practical level, instead of just reading the meaning of a gesture from a book and thinking in some level of your consciousness the meaning if it while doing it. Furthermore, gestures and signs used in rituals may appear in your dreams while doing this exercise, giving you more information about themselves, possibly providing you with better insight than before.

Ox, Thoughts

Rule thy Thought! Jugorum includes two differing exercises for training the mind. The first one is similar to those controlling speech and action: you are avoiding thinking about a certain subject and everything connected with it. You're advised to pick a target you are usually thinking about rather often, something that sensory input or other people's conversations stir in your mind frequently.

The other example given differs from the earlier ones. This one advices you to create two clearly different personalities (A and B) for yourself. What personality is “on”, is defined with some type of tool, for example by switching a ring from one finger to another. The created personalities should be distinct, with the main features being connected to the basic needs of life. When the ring is on the Person A's finger, you shouldn't let any Person B's thoughts to enter your mind and vice versa.

In Crowley's example peson A is passionate, skilled in Qabalah, a vegetarian and “reactionary” politician. Person B, in turn, is an ascetic thinker, occupied with work and family, eats meat and progressive politician. You can choose the opposites better suiting yourself by looking at everyday issues important to you and then dividing your opinions in two camps.

In effect, you can choose between a paradox and a paradigm. The paradox is created by completely avoiding thinking about something, but still being aware of it. The paradigm is connected to controlling the paradigms of two different personalities, without unbalancing your own mind.

The mind is the most important tool of the Mage, so training it shouldn't be considered of minor importance. Looking closer at the example exercises given by Crowley, you can spot benefits of doing the ox-part of Jugorum to your magick usage. Shutting a certain subject out of your mind trains yourself to be able to shut out of the reality of your mind thoughts, thought patterns and frames of mind that could be negative from the point of view of your different magickal workings. Having trained with working with two different “I”s, you may be better able to “put on your Mage's personality” when you switch from everyday reality to the reality of magick use, helping with the change of the state of consciousness for those who do not differentiate between everyday life and magick, too.

With the paradigm exercise you can also allow your more sceptical sides to exist without disturbing the usage and results of magick. You do not need to cull your scepticism – that doesn't pay, it is a useful too – when you can allow it to manifest, separately from the strong belief in magick while practicing.

Tools of Control

Earlier on, I mentioned the punishment you get from slipping. The main tool of control in Jugorum is very primitive – physical punishment you are giving yourself. In addition to this, you should keep a diary on your exercise.

The advice given by Crowley is grim: “On each occasion you slip to say/do/think that what you have sworn to avoid, cut yourself sharply on the wrist or arm with a razorblade.” Advancement is monitored in two way: “Your arm then serves you both as a warning and as a record. You should write down your daily practices, until you are perfectly vigilant at all times.” (quotes paraphrased) Perfectly vigilant. That is, no avoidable words should come from your lips or your pen, no forbidden gestures from your body, nor uprooted thoughts should enter your mind.

Razorblade as a punishment is very demanding and most people who do Jugorum exercises aren't using it. The most common form of punishment seems to be a rubber band around the wrist. When you slip, you snap the rubber band, hard. I have used that method and while doing my first exercise, I sometimes considered switching to the razor blade method as a less painful option…

Other methods I've heard or read about include a pocket-size gizmo which gives electric shocks (which truly isn't advisable!), slapping yourself on the cheek and one apparently very effective method (probably due to the embarrassment factor included) of dropping down to do push-ups no matter where you happen to be. Some consider the embarrassment you get from knowing you've slipped to be punishment enough.

If you choose to use rubber band or other methods of punishments that do not leave marks on your skin, the “book keeping effect” (counting the number of mistakes from your own skin and comparing different times of doing Jugorum with each others) is lost. The rubber band will leave red marks, but they are hard or even impossible to count. However, you can take to carrying a pen and drawing a line on your arm after each punishment. You can then mark down the lines into your diary daily and keep an eye on your development this way.

1) Liber III vel Jugorum is a class D publication, official rituals and instructions, in the classification of Thelemic literature.

#Magick #Thelema #Rituals

 
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from ~ PaperG ~

Week #45 of the famous photo challenge came up with Minimalism. At the beginning of the week, I was quite sure, that this would be not a big deal for me, as I really love minimalism. Something will cross my way... Easy...

Well to be honest, it turned out that the days have passed as quickly as the sand trickles through our hands. And so I found myself late Sunday evening after dinner, sitting at the table. In front of me a flashlight and a small kitchen aid that I bought in the big Swedish shop the other day.

When I found this little treasure (aka garlic press), I took it in my hands and turned it back and forth. I was immediately fascinated by the wonderful clear design and its beautiful mechanics. A decision was quickly made to take it with me, and in the very same moment it was clear to me that I must take a photograph of this beautiful piece of product design and engineering art 😎

Back at the table. Feeling a kind of pressure in the meantime, I started playing around with the flashlight. I placed the press here and there, tried different angles of the flashlight – backlight, illuminating from the front, the side. Finally I turned off all surrounding lights and used the flashlight to illuminate the sieve backlit and placed in its cylindrical holder. When I saw the first shots I felt that I was on track... Well on the track of abstract, but not on the track of minimalism 🤪

Warp Drive

Anyway I had quite some fun with this first set and tried out different ideas. But after a short view at the clock I got a little nervous, I must admit. Struggling shortly I turned on the surrounding light again and tried out completely different views at a shorter focal length. My goal was to have this really, really cool mechanics to shine up as the center of the take.

And so I ended up with this shot that I tooted Sunday night – after the deadline to be strict – but who cares 😉

Under Pressure

 
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from Karin Wanderer Learns

The current #KWPrompts is #MarineMammals. (Find more info about the KWPrompts art challenge here.) I want to share some tricks & tips I've picked up after a week of drawing & painting these lovely animals.

Watercolor grey whale swimming happily through the ocean. Gray whales have no dorsal fin

  1. Use a lot of reference photos! Marine animals are so different from terrestrial ones. This sounds obvious- a whale is different from a horse, of course! – but compare a polar bear to a black bear or a grizzly. The polar bear is more streamlined, since it is adapted to spending so much of its life in the water. If you try to draw a polar bear with a grizzly shape, it will look wrong.
  2. Watch a lot of nature documentaries! Animals in the water are always moving. Even when they sleep in the water, they drift about

Watercolor narwhal having a lovely swim. Narwhals change color as they age, from greyish to blackish to white.

This is as far as I had gotten a week ago. I've been a bit distracted since. On a lighter note-

Here are some of my favorite facts about marine mammals

  1. Gray whales hold the migration record at nearly 14,000 miles, round trip. Other whales, like the narwhal, do not migrate at all.
  2. Narwhals & beluga whales can breed. The hybrids are called “narlugas.”
  3. Blue whales are so big, their tongues weigh as much as an elephant!
  4. Dolphins have individual whistles that their friends & family recognize.

Watercolor porpoise swimming happily. Porpoises always look like half-made dolphins.

The art challenge lasts 1 more week from the day this post was made. You can submit a new picture every day, work on one picture for whole time, or post pics randomly. This is the most laid-back art challenge on the internet, & that means you have plenty of time to make your art however you want.

Use #KWPrompts #MarineMammals & tag @KarinWanderer so I see it!

Pick your social & post your art! Mastodon Bluesky Cara

All art styles & skill levels are welcome- beginner to expert, renaissance painting to rough sketch! No AI, Yes alt text, CW as needed. Have a fantastic day, draw something for my art challenge, see you next week!

 
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from Magicka Ovriana

Visualization: the ability or skill to see something that doesn't 'really' exist in front of your eyes, either keeping your eyes closed or open. Also, forming and using a clear mental image, used in magick. Simple! Everybody can do it, if they only practice hard enough! But what if you simply aren't visually oriented and your visual imagery works better when “images” are actually heard, felt, smelt or tasted, or when they are metaphors? What if you can't see anything when you close your eyes, but your other senses or one of your other senses work quite well?

When you look at basic articles dealing with visualization, almost every single one of them will concentrate on visualization as something sight-based, as if there were no other options or if the other options were quite unimportant or effective in magick or meditation. The importance given to sight can be seen in the terminology used: visualization is the general term used to cover also the practice of forming mental images with other senses than sight.

When it comes to dominant senses, people who are visually oriented form the largest group, but there are still plenty of people who don't think or dream in pictures. According to some statistics, audio-oriented people are the second largest group, while people who have touch or movement as their strongest sense, or who have scent/taste as the strongest sense when it comes to dreams, memories, and mental “images” are left to form smaller minorities.

When your strongest sense is something other than sight, all the talk of visualization as something connected only to seeing can cause feelings of being inadequate and even worrying if one can even use magick. This is quite understandable, as visualization is explained as something that is very important for being able to use magick, even a precondition for it. When given practices center on developing sight, trying and failing can make you doubt your own skills and make you feel like there's nowhere to go. If the instructions of your traditions tell you that you should be able to see the circle cast with your mind's eye and you can't do it, it isn't that strange you'd start doubting if you can do a ritual. What about spells? If you are supposed to see the result in order to succeed – are you doomed to failure if you simply don't function visually?

Visual “visualization” isn't the only possibility there is, so you shouldn't be too worried if you can't do it. Working magick, rituals, spells, meditations and what have you are perfectly possible for 'sightless' people as well! It can require somewhat more work, as texts and instructions are written for those who function in sight, but it is possible. By modifying exercises and instructions you can make them work for other senses as well. That modifying requires a bit of (creative) application, but you can do it. By working on your strongest sense, you may with time be able to make your other senses stronger. Even if you are visually oriented, doing exercises on other senses can help you in creating a more complete visualization experience.

Some Exercises

Here are some short, simple exercises to get you started:

As usual, it's good to have the place where you are doing the exercises somewhat dim and peaceful. Having people buzzing about and having other disturbances around don't exactly help with concentration. Part of the preparation is to sit comfortably, as you will be staying in one position for a length of time and relaxing yourself to a light trance state.

As a side note: it pays not to train yourself to be able to meditate or get into a trance only when it's perfectly peaceful. Total quiet or nearly so isn't always possible in situations where you need to work magick, nor is requiring such sensible. When you get basics in order, start doing your exercises where there are external disturbances.

Sight

A basic exercise one is often given is a candle-based one. Here's one version: Light a candle and have it stand at your eye-level about two feet away. Look at the flame, inspect and study it, its movements and colors, how the flame stands out against the dark background. Concentrate all your attention to the flame until it's practically all you can see. Then close your eyes, still facing the candle, and start building up the image of the flame using your mind's eye. In the beginning you may see only a faint glimpse of the flame, but don't panic – exercises take time. If your concentration breaks and the image disappears, try building it again without opening your eyes. When you can keep the image in your mind for a long period of time, try adding the movement of the flame, then expanding your exercise later on so that you can see the whole candle. You can also start modifying the image in your mind by making the candle larger, changing the color of the candle or the flame – whatever you can think up. Clarity is more important in this exercise than the time you can keep it up. With time you won't need stimulus to start with, that is, the candle to watch.

Note that some people can visualize in two dimensions, but not in three. If you're one of the two-dimensional people, work with that ability – don't feel lacking because you aren't a “three-dimensional visualizer”.

Hearing

If you're one of those people who has an internal jukebox playing songs and sounds out on its own initiative, or who remembers discussions down to the tones of voices, you can learn to “visualize” sound. Starting to exercise with “auralization” (“visualization by the ear”) doesn't really need stimuli. However, it pays to rehearse your aural memory to work under your will, also to meditate on soundscapes. You can add concentrating on a certain sound and examining it while meditating; rehearsing single sounds, tunes, rhythms, repeated words (starting with, for example, type of mantras with no personal importance), sounds of nature, etc. If you have trouble clearing your mind of thoughts while meditating, you can try using soothing nature sounds like rainfall to “fill up your mind”.

One useful exercise is to transform a persistent “ear worm” (a piece of music, often a quite unwanted one, playing as a loop in your head) to something else, like a mantric sigil. For those who are less hearing oriented, the starting point can be meditating on repeated words, mantras or simple sounds, with a stimulus to reconstruct in your mind's ear or without one.

Touch

When it comes to exercising this sense, you can approach the subject through feeling touch, temperatures, air streams or presence. However, it's good to practice all of these. It is quite difficult to give any direct exercises, as the way each individual feels is rather personal. Therefore finding the way that fits you best is left to your own activities and aptitudes. It helps if you know a relaxation routine when you concentrate your thoughts on one part of your body at the time until it starts to feel warmer and it feels like a stream of air / gentle touch would be around that body part – that exercise can be modified to be used here.

Scent and Taste

The basic principle with “scent visualization” is the same as with sight visualization. Light incense and breathe in its scent. Let the scent fill your whole consciousness, excluding everything else. Concentrate on the scent, examine it in your mind from all angles, studying its effects on you – what it brings to your mind, how it feels. Let the incense burn all up, keeping the scent alive in your mind as long as you can. Later on, after the scent has all but disappeared from the air around you, concentrate and strive to bring the scent back to your mind using the associations you created. There's no need to worry if you can't do that straight away – you can always practice more. In fact, you should always practice more. Let the incense burn for a shorter period each time you do this exercise, trying to keep the scent 'visualized' a little longer than before, until you are able to 'visualize' it at will without the help of the actual incense.

For taste, you can work using the same principles as with scents. Other possibilities?

In the introduction to this article, I mentioned metaphors. You can use and develop 'word/verbal visualization' not only as a technique of its own right, but also in aiding and strengthening other imagery. You can use the previously described visual-visualization as the basics. Work otherwise like you did in the earlier exercise, but after closing your eyes describe – with words – the candle flame and then the whole candle as vividly as you can. Keep in your mind complete certainty of the candle's existence. Why wouldn't you be certain it is really there? After all, it does exist, even though you can't see it at the moment. If you would extend your fingers towards the flame, the flame would still burn your fingers – even though it is “visible” only as a description in your head. Take that certainty and be that certain when you are, for example, describing to yourself deities called in rituals. Yes, right, but what about all the rituals and stuff like that?

Exercising different senses as such doesn't solve the original problem, that is – how to manage with a weak or totally nonexistent visual-visualizing ability while meditating and working magick, and how to enrich one's sphere of visualization.

You could say that the basic idea is that of “mixing sensations”. That is, observing stimuli often associated only with one sense, with other senses as well. At the same time, taking into consideration all senses if possible, finding out your own strong and weaker senses for example by using the different exercises. Even “in real life”, what you experience of the world surrounding you is formed by all of the senses you have working together, not through one singular sense. So, why would things be one-sense-dimensional in the world of magick?

You can start bringing down the walls separating each of the senses by, say, asking yourself what does the taste of a given feeling sound like, what a taste feels like, what does the sound of a scent look like, what does the sight of a tune scent like, etc. To put it in other words, by questioning the limits of possibilities and bending your mind to accept the idea that the possibilities of different senses are not set in stone – especially when the senses in questions are inside your own mind.

Instead of concentrating on what any given object (or 'object') looks like, you can concentrate on how they sound, feel, smell, taste. You can add sensations even to quite abstract subjects, choosing the associations according to your own experiences or the 'tables of correspondences' used by your religion or tradition, searching for connections crossing the boundaries of senses. One tool to use can be, for example, Aleister Crowley's Liber 777.

Discovering and writing down your own associations and correspondences is also quite a good exercise. You can expand your overall magick usage through building a network of correspondences speaking to you on a very personal level.

I'd say that one big reason for exercises, instructions for rituals, and so forth concentrate so much on sight is that it's the easiest way to explain. Unfortunately, at the same time many other possible approaches get overlooked. What also can get overlooked is that no matter what approach your visualization takes, the certainty in what you are doing and experiencing is more important than whether you are able to reproduce something in your mind. This “mere reproducing” happens all the time in your normal, everyday thought processes and few would call thinking visualizing. It may not even be possible to 'cut down' a visualizing or magick working experience and even when sight is playing the major role, it is (most often) only part of the experience.

With rituals, you can instead of (or in addition to) seeing symbols and other visualized parts, hear sounds associated with them, draw them as a trail of scent or feel their presence. While meditating, you can sense colors as scents, sounds or feelings. With spells, you can 'visualize' the result of the spell by hearing clearly, say, the company you applied to calling you and telling you that you got the job.

Bathe in imagery, whether the images were pictures or something else.

Some things you could ponder...

  • What does blue smell like?
  • What is the sound of a pentagram?
  • What does a magickal circle feel like?
  • What does a deity you are invoking (or evoking) taste like?
  • How would you sense the energies of magick with all your available senses?

#Magick #Rituals #Meditation

 
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from ~ PaperG ~

It's November again. The sun makes itself scarce through the day and leaves the stage to the fog which often rules the day and even the night. The other day, I followed the impulse, grabbed my gear, plugged in my earbuds and went for a late walk through the foggy night.

I had no clear destination and somehow just followed my inner compass. I had no lights on and let my eyes adjust to the darkness. The gothic music I heard from my earbuds was a perfect support for this dark, foggy and somehow unreal night. When I walked down the small street, I reached a tree with a street lamp behind it. I was immediately caught by the light rays and sectors of light that built up perfectly through the fog, turning the leaves of the tree into perfect silhouettes.

So I set my tripod and did some shots of this quiet, dense scene – playing with aperture and time, while listening to the music.

Into the Light

I folded up my tripod, put it on my shoulder and continued my walk, still without any light other than that of a few street lamps and their dull reflections in the fog. I tried paths I knew from the day, but it turned out that they were too dark and didn't make for an interesting night shot.

Well, I turned around again and took the direct route across the meadows when I saw some street lights that made a nice picture from a distance. As I approached them to get the right angle for my prime lens, it wasn't as interesting as I thought it would be.

As I walked on I found myself in the middle of a rather mystical scene just a few minutes later. A backlit group of trees next to a shed caught my attention as they showed such wonderfully soft but distinct silhouettes. It's simply awesome how fascinating taking photographs can be on a foggy night.

Night Fog

I've posted both pictures as a goodnight wish to the Fedinauts out there in the wide Fediverse.

 
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