The 2012 Solstice Working in Costa Rica

To say this is a ‘big day’ does an injustice to the magnitude of the word ‘cosmic.’

The very moment of the Winter Solstice, 6:11 am my local time, I was on top of my mountain in Costa Rica. My daily ritual routine was shaken up by a preoccupation with a toy – a round pentacle of wood, with a screw in the center of the compass points so I could measure the angle of the shadow of the sunrise. It takes a year to make a good sundial, and I thought it poetic to start my measurements today. Having the implements to juggle caused me some distraction, and changed the normal order of my morning rituals.

This was, of course, an unexpected advantage.

For those of you who like to geek out about this sort of thing, here was the order of my rituals today:

Qabalistic Cross
LBRP
I skipped the Archangel Michael clearing – it allowed me to remain connected with the noosphere, without excluding any connections as they were happening.
I also did not face the quarters with each ritual – I performed them all to the East, with the rising sun.
I chanted the holy name of each chakra one time, to work up the channel.
Tree breathing.
I got lost for a bit, so I used the fourfold breath and the qabalistic cross to return to center.
Strong grounding cord. I knew I was about to go out into deep space.
Walking down the Tree of Life. Kether was extremely powerful. I started there and came down the Tree, embedding the energy in Malkuth.
The Middle Pillar and Vibratory Formula combined.

This is where improvisation and intuition guided me into the magical working.

After I invoked each God-name into the sphere, chanting and visualizing the flaming letters, I used the Sign of the Enterer to cast the sephira into the Sun, and up the Tree of Life, to its proper place in the cosmos.

Kether – EHIEH – I invoked the energy from the center of the galaxy into EHIEH once again, lit a sprig of sage, and wound it around my head as I chanted. This crown of smoke became infused with the power of the God-name I was invoking into it. After chanting 6-8 times, I cast it away using the Sign of the Enterer. It went through the Sun and into the Center of the Galaxy. The alignment of Earth, Sun, and the Center of the Milky Way galaxy is what the end of the Mayan Calendar was all about. The definitive marking point when the Age of Aquarius begins. After the sephira charged with the energy in this place, drawing power from the Unmanifest, I invoked it back down the Macrocosmic Tree along the Path of the Arrow. As the energy came down into my own crown, I was overcome. I nearly fell down. My senses were shaken, and I stabilized myself with the Fourfold Breath.

This overabundance, surplus, fountain of energy, I drew down into Da’ath, and chanted YHVH ELOHIM. I visualized the lavender sphere with flaming letters, drawing power from the sephira above, and then I cast it out through the sun, but not so far as the galactic core. This flaming sphere rested in the Akashic Records, drawing knowledge and power into it. I then invoked it back into me, using the Sign of Silence to hold it there. Again, more shaking of my limbs.

Drawing the energy down further, into my heart center, I invoked YHVH ALOAH VA DA’ATH and felt the energies grow here. I cast it up into the Sun itself, but no further. It drew energy from the eternal flame of the star. As I drew the sephirah back into Tiphareth, I felt the flame come down my central channel and rest in my heart.

I urged it a bit lower, into Yesod, and chanted SHADDAI EL CHAI. When I cast it up it did not make it to the sun, but slipped behind the Veil, and drew in the power of the imagination. It came back down my spine and into the base, pulsing with energy. I found my footing, brought the energy down to my feet, and invoked Malkuth.

ADONAI HA’ARETZ is the God-name here, and I felt manifestation crystallizing in the sphere I imagined burning beneath my feet. This went up through my whole Middle Pillar, up into the Sun, crashing through the Veil, through the Hall of Knowledge, and into the center of the galaxy. When it reached the singularity at the core, behind which there is Nothing, I invoked the energy of the Unmanifest into the Sphere of Manifestation.

AIN SOF AUR

AIN SOF

AIN

I chanted the Holy Names of Nuit, invoking that far-off cosmic core into the Sphere of Malkuth, and I drew it back into me.

When it returned, it brought something with it.

It was there, in Malkuth, in the sphere beneath my feet. I explored it, hesitantly. It was a ball of grey-purple energy, smooth and formless. I examined it for a moment cautiously, and pondered what it could be, considering the mechanics of how it came to me.

Then I realized: it is a wish.

This energy was pure Unmanifest, brought from the Center of the Galaxy on the Winter Solstice which marks the transition of the ages. And I had it sequestered beneath my feet.

What should I wish for?

The proverbial genie had just popped out of the bottle, and as entranced as I was, I knew I must make my wish immediately, or risk losing the sphere of Unmanifest among the different planes of consciousness.

I quickly reviewed all the areas of my life. I am happy and content in areas of health, love, environment, work, and joy.

The only thing I don’t have in overabundance is money.

At random, I selected a large number that was both believable and felt epic, felt worthy of a wish. I wished for six million dollars.

I saw a stack of cash quickly materialize in the Sphere of the Unmanifest under my feet, and the color of the sphere turned clear. It rapidly grew in size to encompass the 500-foot sphere of my aura, and the image of cash grew with it, to fill the entire auric space. Then the bubble gently popped, and the image dissolved.

My energy centers were once again glowing normally on the Astral Plane. And I had just made a wish.

This wish may have been given to me for the payment of a very good deed, which I agreed to participate in when I felt the call.

Around me, in the Ether, there was a web of light being woven around the globe. In preparation for whatever may happen today, Lightworkers around the world stepped up together, put our hands on one another shoulders, and said, ‘We’ve got this.’

We will protect the Earth today.

Situated as I am, out in the mountains of Central America, sheltered from the interaction and confusion of largely populated areas, I have the unique opportunity and privilege to hold the light for the world today.

I vowed to ignore any events that were happening today, and focus instead on my own powerful contribution to the world.

In my imagination, I looked around, in the Great White Brotherhood of Light, and felt my peers around me, making similar dedications for this day.

We’ve got this.

I am protecting the world, and I am honored to be a part of this honor guard.

I send you this message, because you are friend enough for me to privately share this aspect of my life with you; and because you may have felt the call, too. If you help the Light this day, know that I am your far-off brother, holding the Light with you.

As I walked down the mountain, I marveled at the majestic views. I felt the fairies riding birds around me, and I realized (with some surprise) that the Veil between the worlds was thinner than I had ever experienced it.

Is that what today is about? I wondered. Is the Veil coming down for good? Are we reuniting with the World of Faery?

Time will tell. My senses may have only been so heightened because of the working I had just completed; the Veil still seems low to me now, as I write this midday.

It is time for me to make my noon observation, and draw a shadow on the sundial I will complete next year.

Ensouling the Rituals

I’ve been thinking about the path from Yesod to Malkuth.

The 32nd Path, the Universe, Tau, is where manifestation happens.

For anything to exist in the physical world, it has to first be fully formed in the astral world, and then it must be ‘ensouled’ by bringing it into the physical.

While re-reading Dion Fortune’s excellent work “The Mystical Qabalah,” I found insight in a passage in the chapter on Malkuth. Paraphrasing, she said, many magicians miss this key step in their ritual work, ensouling the astral images and bringing them down into manifestation.

Isn’t that the biggest problem that magicians deal with? Working on the astral plane, and seeing no results – it is disheartening, and cultivates doubt, an enemy to manifestation and magic.

There needs to be a physical component, Fortune said, which ‘ensouls’ the ritual. Having a ritual purely on the astral plane will not bring about significant changes in the Kingdom, but if we use a physical symbol to channel the idea into manifestation – a gesture, a stone, a crystal, etc – then we provide a physical channel for the astral energies to flow through.

I applied this principle to my latest ritual work. In the mornings, facing the rising sun from the top of my mountain, I have gone through a series of rituals:

Qabalistic Cross
LBRP
Archangel Michael invocation
Chakra opening and chanting
Pattern on the Trestleboard
The Middle Pillar

This last ritual has provided me plenty of advancement over the past two months. When I added a physical component, this advancement increased.

By simply moving my hands in the directions where I feel the light moving, during the Three Circumambulations, the light became much stronger on the astral plane, where I imagined it. I do not know (or care) if it has manifested on the physical plane, although I doubt it. The physical gesture was enough to ‘ensoul’ the ritual, creating a stronger aura of light over my astral form.

Perhaps if I was attempting to create a physical light, this physical ensouling of the ritual would have a physical effect. An experiment for another time.

Full Moon and the Kabbalistic Prayer

I’ve been waiting for this prayer.

You gave it to me once before, when you cleansed my house in Portland.

(I’ve got a note to ask you about my office – let’s chat about that sometime.)

While you and Karl were at work, I was given your spellbook, with the authority to copy only that one spell out into my grimoire. I used that prayer frequently, gaining access to deeper levels of spiritual immersion, by calling the names of every angel on the tree in turn.

It was my favorite.

But, I did not bring that spellbook with m when I moved to Costa Rica. I only brought a handful of books, out of my huge library (I kept about half of it in a storage unit, which is where the spellbook is now). See, books mold here, and without a room with air conditioning where you can keep your books, paper will mold in under a year. I’m already seeing it happen to my books here.

So I’ve been without this prayer for a while, and I’ve really been missing it.

Now, I’ve got it in digital form.

I’ve been sitting on it, not reading it since you sent it over a few days ago. I’ve made a commitment to perform the Middle Pillar every full moon, as a way of keeping the ritual in tune and increasing the strength of my aura.

I just now realized, I actually missed the whole ‘middle pillar’ part of the ritual tonight.

Going up through the sephirah and calling them by name, check.
The Pattern on the Trestleboard, got it.
The three circulations, oh yeah.
The Kabbalistic Prayer – knocked me into my first seizure in months.
But did I actually move Jakin and Boaz into the Middle Pillar?

Oh, I forgot…

I was pretty trancey, and I was looking forward to

jumping back into my favorite meditation/ritual/prayer of all time for the first time in more than half a year, and
using my new wand.

I didn’t consecrate it, but I realized, I have a wand. I carry it around all the time.

I was looking to the East, where the full moon dominated the sky, and I looked through a fence made of sprouting logs. The top of my mountain has a great elemental spot for ritual work; to the north is the mountain face, to the south is the majestic view, to the west is the creek behind the foliage of the jungle (and even a tower of water, a cistern that feeds the houses below) and to the east, I can see the city in the distance, obscured by two rows of twine that join parallel wands, branches of jungle trees that were cut down, and then regrow when one end is stuck in the ground.

Quintessential Air, over there.

And since that’s the element I am most comfortable with nowadays, I looked at my iPhone in terms of this element, when I had to transfer the digital version of the Kabbalistic Prayer out of the pages document you sent, and into the body of an email that I emailed to myself.

Atop the mountain, amidst my rituals, I took my wand out of my pocket, called down this prayer from the heavens, and it appeared within my wand. (It was even playing music to set the mood for my meditative space.)

This realization that my phone serves structurally as my Air Wand was very fulfilling for me. I’ve got a new appreciation for it, in an elemental sense.

Going through the Kabbalistic Prayer was majestic. At the end it felt as if a thunderbolt struck me from the sky, and I shook with the power for some minutes. Looking around at the moonlit landscape, still in a trance, I stomped the ground and exhaled, pushing the energy into my roots, to keep it from agitating me. It helped to ground me further, thanks to the grounding and root chakra work I have been concentrating on for the last week.

Now, I am simultaneously wiped and energized. I’m going to write on affirmations for a while (such is the task of being a writer, is sticking to your own self-imposed production deadlines) and then meditate before a long, restful sleep.

I really enjoy this apprenticeship. Thank you so much.

The Beautiful Surrender. (In Netzach)

Surrender is a beautiful movement in which you gracefully, willingly, languidly fall, only to find midway that you have been gathered into some unimaginable embrace. Surrender is letting go, whether or not you believe the embrace will occur. It’s trust to the hundredth power – not sticking to your idea of the outcome, but letting go in the faith that even the absence of an outcome will be the perfect solution.

Surrender is diaphanous and fluid. It’s the giving up of rigidity of every kind: rigidities of the mind that design outcomes to occur in very specific ways; rigidities of the body that refuse to receive the touch that could heal, the passion that could transform; rigidities of the soul that congeal and congest the spirit, causing it to imagine it has a life apart from the body and mind.

Surrender is meltdown of every rigidity we’ve ever been committed to, the conscious and unconscious dismantling of how we though things should be, to make way for the way things will, in fact, occur. It’s a kind of being surprised by joy, of happily swimming into greater consciousness that’s always operating on our behalf. Just as a child, learning to swim, discovers, amazed, that the water does hold him up, so surrender buoys us up, supports us for the fulfillment of our destinies.

Surrender requires purity of intention. In the absolute freedom it grants in response to our letting go, it requires an absolute commitment of holding onto nothing. Whatever you thought you had – the idea, the expectation, the plan, the hope of how things should be – you must let go of it fully. Surrender is stepping away from the certainty of your categories into the no-man’s-land of all possibilities.

And it is in surrendering, in letting go into the void – into the mysterious, unnamed, mystical, formless future, into the arms that are invisible – that we become finally ready to receive it all. Surrender is the giving of your all to the All, the waiting with an absolute absence of expectation for the totally perfect thing to occur. <3

~Daphne Rose Kingma

Yesod. Moon. Water.

This has been a very auspicious time.

My wife is having a baby any day now. (Tomorrow? My birthday? I hope so.) I follow the Mayan calendar a bit, and there’s a supercharged period going between Christmas Eve 2011 and Sunday, January 8, the next full moon.

I’m hoping my son is born sometime in this timeframe.

Last night, I made a fire in front of our house. We sat around, the entire family, watching the flames, and above us the bright, waxing moon looked down at us.

I feel great connections to the moon. Artemis is the patron of our House. She is also the goddess of childbirth, and as my son waxes full in his mother’s belly, I feel her protection covering us.

Moving into Yesod for this period has been especially comforting, because here, I can comfortably operate in the field of the unknown. Mysteries don’t scare me, because there is an odd strengthening of faith within the acceptance of the unknown.

Yesod, the moon, and the unknown, are watery elements. This is the element I have always felt least balanced with, and swimming in the pool on my mountain has been very helpful to soothe that imbalance.

Last night, after the fire, when everyone went to bed, I took a hot bath. Immediately I felt un-agitated, although I didn’t know that I was in a state of agitation before. This happens a lot with immersing myself in water, so I am going to do it more often.

There is a lot of water in the air here – it is a very humid place. During the rainy season (Sept-Nov) I was uncomfortable in my body a lot of the time, and cold, and I took lots of baths for relief.

I’m spending this time ruminating on the elemental correspondence of this sephirah, because I’m having realizations about my own elemental tendencies. I only realized it about a month ago, Air is where I feel most comfortable, and I didn’t expect that.

In my birth chart there is no Air. Earth and water, through Capricorn, and plenty of Fire (moon in Sagittarius) but no Air.

However, it is a masculine element that deals with intelligence, and this is the personal skill that I am most confident in.

My body was weak before my twenties, and my emotions have always been unstable; my will, a forceful and stubborn thing, is only controlled by my rational mind. And my mind is incredible.

I aced the SATs. My IQ was off the charts in third grade. I never studied for tests before college, because I just…got it. I learn so fast, and I have so much enjoyment of learning, that my intelligence has always been my favorite cardinal skill.

So of course, Air, right?

But I never thought of that, during all my years of magical study. I never compared this element as my favored cardinal element, but it makes plenty of sense.

My business is all about communication. I spend all day on a laptop. I praise my children for their cleverness above their caring. (We have a house rule: if it’s really funny, you don’t get in trouble.)

Despite all of these obvious indications that Air is my element, I’m still surprised by it, maybe even a little abashed. I learned a lot about myself as an Earthy capricorn, and assumed that as an Earth sign, this must be the cardinal element that guides my steps.

But I was wrong. It’s always been Air, and short of brain damage, it will always be Air.

During the Elements class, I was so uncomfortable in Earth and Water, and the period of Air gave me so much relief and joy and energy that I was surprised by it. In retrospect, it was like coming home.

While watching the fire the other night, I became entranced by the smoke, watching it chaotically curl and churn. Air is fast, and follows patterns that are too complex to comprehend. That’s my world. That’s my speed. That’s my element.

I come to this realization within Yesod, in the realm of the unknown, except I come to it as the unexpected. As a tool for self-knowledge, the Tree is certainly providing itself as a fast way to learn.

I’m prepping for some thoughts on addictions, which is another essential signpost on the path through Yesod. More later.