As previous articles HERE at theblogofbaphomet have described, one of the on-going projects I’m involved with is ‘Chaos Craft’. This involves using the Pagan Wheel of the Year and the eight colours of magick as the container within which a ‘bring and share’ model of running a magickal meeting is deployed. Using this approach individuals get the opportunity to bring their own practice or ritual work to explore with others. They lead that section of the meeting, acting as ‘Master/Mistress of the Temple’ or ‘High Priest/Priestess’.
Each ritual segment averages 30 minutes in length, with some practices being longer or shorter. Generally the arc of a meeting moves from creating sacred space or banishing, through a formal round of introductions, then into bodywork or spellcraft/results magick, slowly building towards a final main ceremony which is sacramental or celebratory in nature. Typically breaks can be programmed into this running order to allow periods for practices to settle, visits to the loo and cups of tea to be had. This modular structure also means that members of the group can opt in or out of certain practices, leave the session when they need to, and others can arrive later and be included in the narrative of that meeting’s process.
So here’s a little sample of what we got up to at our recent Equinox meeting. The italicised text is from the notes presented by some of the contributors.
Into the labyrinth…
Hail the September Equinox! Time of balance all across the earth! The clear skies of early autumn provoke the steel-sharp points of stars. The rivers are in full flood, the ocean rises high and drops away.
In the blue there are no boundaries, we recognise this time of balance in the sign of the scales, and we slip, in the northern hemisphere, into the dark.
Together we meet in the garden temple, greeting each other, toasting our company and the spirits of the land and the time. We propitiate Neptune, God of the deep blue sea, asking for riches from his Kingdom. We drum and chant barbarous words. We seal the spell with blue magicians’ flash paper.
We recognise the blue of our Buddha nature and of action and reaction. The intent behind this ritual is to celebrate and to reaffirm our connections to each other which are the real source of wealth, to the world, and to the cosmos. The pathway is visualisation – generating blue chaospheres from the throat chakra into the centre…”
The fathomless blue of Bliss.
We honour the goddess Metis, Goddess of practical wisdom and magical craft. We speak with her in tongues, finding a way between the deep bass rumble of language and the shrill staccato of speech.
Next up is the, “arachnoid apophenia genogram rite”. Using the genogram to map our personal family systems so as to more fully appreciate meaningful connection – by adding in other factors -hobbies, pets, fetishes, gods etc, we sought to map our own personal tree of life. Once we had done this we identified one relationship that we wished to transform and sought to use colour, rune staves etc to help focus our intent. We used some trance drumming to aid this process!
A turquoise magick fills us during the next ceremony. Blue magick filtered through Green, helping us to gain wealth through doing what we love. Making good gold. We pray to Ganesh to break down the obstacles which keep our hearts closed, and to let our love call forth the wealth from our lives.
As night falls another witch woman leads a ritual; We can follow the descent of the goddess, of Ishtar and Persephone, we can make the quest of the hero with Orpheus, Theseus and Arthur. If we journey into the labyrinth, we can connect to our subconscious, and embrace the coming dark, instead of fighting it.
All who are willing to explore the spiral path, know this, it is full of mysteries, the labyrinthine ways are shifting, and unsettling, and not for the faint hearted. So we will take the witches’ cords with us for protection – the symbol of Ariadne the Goddess of the red thread, which ties us to life, to this world, to reality and sanity.
This thread was enchanted by She who Spins, by She who Measures and by She who Cuts. When I give it to you DO NOT LET GO. Form up the gates, and begin the chant into the labyrinth. Feel the walls growing around you, feel the thread which will lead us home, feel the narrow spiral path leading us down, into the spiral, into the silence, into the shadows. Sink Down, Sink Down, deeper and ever more deep, into eternal and primordial sleep Sink Down, be still, forget and draw apart, into the earth’s most secret heart.
Round one spiral, into the core, and out again, we return from this iteration of our descent into the labyrinth.
We move for the final ritual down into the subterranean temple and into The Blue Room.
In the underground circle we give our attention, beginning at the East, to the eight directions and the eight colours. Asking for the wealth of all these forces, we bid them hail and welcome.
Through the gentle equipoise yoga we find our own centre, our point of balance. Poised between the in-breath and the out, between dark and light, heaven and earth.
Blue cords are prepared, and in the centre of the temple a cauldron of rich soil. Cornucopias rest within it, spraying out flowers and seeded stems of the season. A blue ribbon encircles the cauldron and a spiral light of electric blue coils inwards. At its heart is a blue clay vessel containing a sacrament; blue coloured, peach tasting, effervescent water, upon which float delicate slivers of pure gold.
Bringing our attention to the throat chakra we chant the bija mantra of that powerzone, ‘Ham’. And knot our cords, bringing awareness to our wealth and to those things which we would take with us into the dark time to come. The witches’ cone of power is raised, majestic, strong and gentle. We relax, body armour coming off, singing and swaying, knotting and pulling the cords until the High Priest cries ‘down!’, and we drop the power into the cauldron, into the sacrament.
Azure liquid fizzes at our lips, we drink in the gold.
There is laughter and feasting (and a little more magick later that night and indeed the morning, but that, as they say is another story…).
The seeds begin to come, the fruits of the year, swollen with the light, the early signs of browning decay are everywhere. Spiders spin their dew spangled webs across improbably wide gulfs. We conjure for wealth and recognition of our wealth, that we may take this gold from the light half of the year into the west, beneath the dark blue waters. We harvest the experience of the light and wrap it in darkness so it may germinate there as ideas, new possibilities, future magick.
The autumn morning; heavy rain drops from indigo swollen clouds.
Golden leaves spiral through the air, to earth.
Blue Magick Spirit Jar
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