Morning prayers does not sound like a Chaos Magick^TM practice. However, I and others often indulge in this activity; taking inspiration from other traditions, we pray to the Great Spirit (a handy term which mean whatever we want it to) and give thanks for what we have.

It looks like this for me: I start with a prayer to each of the four compass directions, gazing at the appropriate locus and speaking aloud (though usually quietly). Starting with North and working clockwise around the spatial plane, and thinking of the times of day each represents as well as the elemental signifiers used in the island I live on. North is midnight, and Earth; while the exact words differ upon each iteration, general themes here are of solidity, comfortable dark security, material objects, the ‘real’, as well as the dreams we make which can eventually accrete enough additional support to manifest. East brings morning, air, feelings of beginnings, the energy that prompts us to connect with our worlds. Yesterday it brought forth the words, “East, the direction that brings us morning cups of tea, and the sound of birds”. South denotes midday, fire, the midst of our activity cycle, doing things, the clarity of thought that comes with illumination. West for us here means water, the ocean that lies towards the sunset, homecomings with the fruits of our labours and the feelings of satisfaction at the close of the day, reconnecting with those we live with, hugs and sharing emotional experiences of the previous day. After these four directions, I pray to the sky, the grandfather which watches over all we do, for a wider perspective on my little life. To the ground beneath us, grandmother earth, who supports us through our steps, providing so much of what we require. And lastly to the centre of all these, the node of perception and expression that is at the core of Me.

A nice hot cup of tea

Having reminded myself of where I am, I pray and give thanks. These sentences can follow a grouped structure, with the two types of expression in turn, or sometimes they mix. I pray to the Great Spirit that my friends find the courage, wisdom and strength they need to get through various tribulations and challenges, I pray that I find the right words when speaking with those that may seek my advice, I pray for smooth travels, I pray for the best health of this person I know who has been feeling low. I give thanks for specific events that have happened, for good encounters with people, for finding the nice jacket I bought the other day, for the sunshine, for the food in our cupboards, for clean water. I give thanks for intelligent companions. I give thanks for my body, for the fluffy socks on my feet right now, and the feel of the cool morning air around me. And then I close by simply ending the words, as they fade and I feel I have said enough, drifting back to ordinary stuff; part of this process for me is its very simplicity and seamless flow as part of the day. (These examples are fairly personal, on other days it can be that the mood takes me to a more global perspective with thanks and prayers for larger phenomena.)

During the whole process it seems important to let the words come as they wish, spontaneously, not trying to list everything under the sun, but acknowledging that which is relevant and at the front of my awareness at that moment. One can of course do prayers at any time of day or night. Some of the most lovely times to do this are in the night times, at gatherings, to slip off outside and take a few minutes to take stock and speak aloud of inner imagery. Easily learnt, and requiring no equipment, the praxis recommends itself to the chaos magician and others alike. It can be done daily, or just as we wish.

It differs from the version of prayers my peer group was instructed in as children of the state approved church, where we begged a remote deity for His favours on our knees. These prayers are offered to the world we see, looking deliberately to the world around us, and within us. Cultivating this sense of gratitude provides a state of appreciation often lacking in a consumerist cultural media which priorities our deficits. Praying brings our attention to that which may benefit from action. So what we pray to, in many ways takes second place to the prayers themselves. The effectiveness rests on the act of mindful attention. Any supernal influences are welcome additions to the reification of desires into sound seeds of our own creation.

NW

One of my earliest spiritual experiences was one in which I became clearly aware of my smallness in the Universe. As a fledgling meditator of 12 years of age I panned back from my room, my street, and my country until I felt as though I was looking down on a distant blue ball suspended in the dark vastness of space.

I was recently reminded of this experience as I watched Neil Degras Tyson describing the unfolding story of the Universe’s development. In listening to his wonderful reworking of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos”, I was left awe struck at the scale of the Universe both in terms of its expanding dimensions and the relative brevity of human evolution when mapped against known time.

As I gaze out at the night sky, I find myself unable to find lasting meaning in any prevailing Metaphysical position, be it a theistic one or that of the strict rationalist. The mystery and expansiveness of space seems to empty me of the trite and obvious. My sense of awe seems to both induce a sense of mild panic as I glimpse the limits of my control and understanding, while at the same time beckoning me onwards into the depths of the unknown.

Maryhill Stonehenge Monument on the Columbia River in Washington, photograph by Ben Canales.

While I personally find little of value in the astrological preoccupations of many ancient civilisations, I can appreciate the sense of power and significance that they attributed to the movement of heavenly bodies against the silent blackness of the night sky. In the midst of life’s busyness and apparent chaos, the steady track of the stars told us stories of an on-going struggle and cosmic return.

The occult sciences as an expression of our humanity, have attributed an almost endless array of complicating correspondences. Whether the planets become gnostic archons or we are trying to glean the significance of “Saturn being in Taurus”, in our attempts to invest meaning and divine causation we may be in danger of producing even more cognitive clutter.

If we can set aside our constructs and schemas in order to embrace a Zen-like “beginner’s mind” what might we find ourselves encountering? Far be it from me to dictate your experience, but in gazing at the darkness of Space, I continue to experience a sense of vastness, transcendence and terror!

In grappling with the limitations of what we can perceive, we cannot help being moved by vastness. Concepts and control are threatened by the limitations of our knowledge and the sense of mystery that Space seems to hold. My friend Aingeal has shared some of her helpful thoughts on vastness here.

I heartily agree regarding her insight that our longing to explore these realms mirrors the initiatory drive to create and explore a greater sense of spaciousness within ourselves. Such exploration has been a key part of my own spiritual journey, and the rationale for integrating Zen sitting into our Hearth meetings has been to allow our entry into such expansive realms. The integration of such apparently disparate pagan and Buddhist inflected perspectives aims to enable us to both embrace the Self while acknowledging the benefits of loosening our hold on certainty.

Gazing upwards at the Cosmos, at that which appears spatially “up” and beyond our lives in all their messiness, our creative engagement with Space can also fuel our longing for the transcendent. In both Ken Wilber’s integral teachings and Gurdjieff’s neo-hermeticism, the Cosmic (or Kosmic) represents a move away from the temporary material realm and toward the unified and eternal.  Personally speaking, while I tend not to buy into such dualism, such spatial metaphors can provide us with potent psychological tools for triggering personal transformation. The sense of “otherness” and potentiality that the Cosmic “up” can represent, need not be a move away from our Earth and our bodies, but it can act as a catalyst in driving us on toward those hopes or aspirations that currently feel so distant. Cosmos contains within its “spaces” the chaotic potentiality of the void; as we shape this dark matter through the skilful application of will, so strange new things become possible.

While my star-gazing has thus far has sounded quite chirpy, it can also be terror-filled. To experience a sense of our smallness and brevity can trigger all sorts of existential despair! No one ever promised that the process of waking up was either easy or pain-free. Unsurprisingly, I am not the first gnostic explorer to make such observations and one could hardly imagine a chaos current without the horror filled vision of Howard Philips Lovecraft.

For me the world of Lovecraft embodies our sense of terror in response to the Universe’s vastness and uncertainty. The monster-gods of the mythos – Azathoth, Nyarlathotep et al provide us with a potent set of shadow archetypes that give form to our profound sense of dis-ease. On one level “the mythos” seems to have little sense of comfort or redemption, but I wonder whether they, like wrathful Buddha-forms, can be sat with and glanced at side-ways. By naming our terrors and giving them shape, arguably we accomplish some degree of containment. They may well still lurk in the stygian depths or between the blackness between the stars, but giving them form may make them (slightly) more manageable. For those wanting to explore this territory further, I commend to you this post by Nikki and the recently reviewed Epoch by Carroll and Kaybryn.  Ia! Ia! Cthulhu Ftagn!

The vastness of Space invites us to both wonder and explore. Despite the fear that we might experience, its allure and mystery call forth the adventurer within that we might “boldly go where no one has gone before….”

I’ll conclude with some words of wisdom from the awesome doom-metallers Neurosis:

“Recognise this as your own nature

Abandon the fear

Abandon the terror you project

Let your mind rest beyond flesh and bone

Look from a place of understanding

Your mind is a conduit

Your mind is as vast as the universe

Rest in this

In the clear light of existence

This light is divine.”

“Prayer” from the Sovereign E.P.

SD