Note before beginning – Leraje and I have history. He has been called by other magicians to work against me before. That’s fine. That’s the way it goes when you work with a bunch of people that use Goetics. It is a personal and I don’t take it as such.
But we seem to have a dislike or a mismatch on some sort of spiritual level. I know some people will disagree with this, but, frankly, my experiences are mine and their experiences are theirs.
One thing you always have to keep in mind when you’re working with any spirits that are inclined to test you and see what you’re made of, is after a fashion, if you keep progressing (and I’m not talking about just doing more rituals or more complicated rituals), you notice a shift in their behaviors to signify their new respect and some of the conflict then stops.
Now, on with Week 14.
Me: “Leraje, please come.”
before I really started calling an earnest, I adjusted a fan that I have on my table. A simple tripod fan I picked up, USB chargeable, only a couple of inches wide, with adjustable legs. And I could feel that he wanted to feel the breeze on my face. So I let him.
I felt him come forward into the front part of my face, sticking to the skin and maybe just under, and I can feel his enjoyment of feeling that breeze on his face. I moved my head around a little after a minute and let him feel the difference. A simple thing that seems to have been genuinely appreciated.
Leraje: “I know why you’re here. I will help you with this process (the week).”
He left.
Dreamwork
Last night’s dream was a bit crackpot, but does fit into the conflict realm and was a bit of a jedi mindfuck. I still remember a fair amount of it, but don’t know that I’ll capture the eeriness well at all.
I was living in a small shack temporarily. It was a known stopping point for travellers and apparently, for swingers, too. We were sharing the space with a couple that had gone out for something, but left their harnesses and leashes behind, hanging from an old, but not rusty nail. Also hanging from it was a cat of nine tails that was clear, but had colored lights. I somehow knew you were supposed to flip the power switch so it can dance like Christmas can these days. It was well used, but this wasn’t apparent from a quick glance and I was trying to not look at it, because I would see scenes of it being used in the past. I didn’t know in the dream if these were imagined scenarios or actual occurrences.
But I did know that when the owners of it came back, there would be an awkwardness from having left it there and them wondering if we were interested.
This introductory scene repeated itself, in a sense. I would find myself walking around the outside and the open window, which wasn’t there before, would draw my gaze right to it. My wife said we should use it (she’s not into that), but I felt it was wrong to use it without asking. This was part of the conflict and played itself out several more times. It then started interspacing itself with the initial discovery scene, but each scene would have a slight nuance and some changes to it that were designed to make me more and more uncomfortable. I didn’t shy away from the conflict and that was partially because I couldn’t. We were stuck at this place without a ride, somehow.
The owners of the devices came back and it was a middle aged couple in their late 50’s. They were interested in swapping and for some reason, this seemed like a good idea to everyone else but me. This facilitated more simmering conflict, but at no time did it bubble over into an argument like it would’ve in real life. The gentle arguments juxtaposed with the old mining camp feel of the shack, being trapped there without a way to leave (but the couple had a vehicle) made for a very strange, surreal dream that became more eery the more conflict there was in it that wasn’t boiling over. And nothing got resolved by the time I woke up.
Freewrite
This is supposed to be about self-limiting behaviors that have held you back (among other areas). I do know of one that seems applicable after last night’s dream conflicts.
I’m not interested in “normal” activities or interests. Wait, what? How does that qualify? It’s self-limiting. As soon as something becomes “popular” in a friend group or community, I’m no longer interested. It’s less something that I directly choose, but is more like a switch goes off and I don’t care about it anymore. This can also happen when I learn too much about a topic and the “magic” is gone, but that isn’t really a self-limiting behavior in the same sense.
I think this stems froma few things and the largest one was that I was desperate to conform and be accepted – even by my own family. That acceptance wasn’t going to happen, by anything I desperately wanted it to, but I didn’t know that. Part of it was because I couldn’t see the acceptance, but I wanted to be liked by everyone, not just a small friend group.
In the place I grew up, especially around small town Mormons with a persecution complex (that persists to this day and is taught and encouraged), smack dab in the Bible Belt, long before things like home internet were a thing, there wasn’t any sort of community I could embrace or take support in. I wanted to conform, so, so badly, but also had this independent streak I seem to have inherited.
As my differences grew, the more I embraced this “lone wolf” part of myself. This actually caused others to come to me, since I wasn’t afraid to do my own thing, even in the face of ridicule or snickering. Flash forward 30 years and you get where I am now. Most of my hobbies are independent, my practice is pretty unique compared to my Occult friend group, I have direction and goals that will be met. I collect skills like others collect figurines.
And all of this separates me from the average person. Even my job, which is done behind razor wire, armed guards, and bomb sniffing dogs. I’ve been successful in all of these areas, yet all of them further distance me from both the general population and run-of-the-mill Occultists. It’s not that I don’t get lonely. I do. I have wonderful friends whose practices are very different from mine and I greatly value those friendships. But it does make it sometimes difficult to talk about finer points of techniques and the ways the “rules” of magic change as you get more powerful, efficient, mature both in practice and Life, etc…
This self-limiting behavior has worked out for me. While I could ponder how things may have been different, it is unknowable ultimately. I think most of us are making lemonade from the lemons we managed to find ourselves with. Tart and Sour, please.
Ritual Time:
The Poisoned Arrow
At the first calling of Leraje for this week, he motioned for me to stop and then placed a poisoned arrow tip inside of me, pointing outwards. It was a defensive trigger. If someone cast against me or “attacked” me, then it would fire off and I wouldn’t have to think about it. I had noticed that is was gone by the second day, but Leraje would say nothing.
There are several ways to do this spell. Both involve using his sigil to open and use the energies to create this poison arrow tip. The different procedures would be how one goes about doing it.
The energetic version is cleanest, where you create the arrow tip with the intent to poison an attacker. How you define “attacker” and what the threshold is is up to you. This would then be place inside yourself or in your energetic field, if that’s more comfortable, and then let it do its thing.
The physical version could get as intricate or simple as you’d like. You could create the arrow tip from wood or metal (or purchase one), if you want to keep this around continually and want an anchor reference to use for it. You could also make a drawing or fold some origami for it.
Then, you’d open Leraje’s sigil and if you want to do it without him, direct the energies into the arrow tip with the intent to poison an attacker, again, making any thresholds or caveats you desire. When the tip is loaded with the energy and intent, then press it to you while vocally and/or willing it to enter you or your energetic field for your defense. When you no longer feel the presence of the arrow, it has either dispersed or flow off to a target. You can burn the representation, if you choose, or save it to further strengthen and fine-tune the creation process as you desire.
The final way would be to ask Leraje to do this for you, with an offering, if you don’t have a relationship with him already. My relationship with his wasn’t the most positive (he’s good at what he does, for sure), so my “payment” for receiving this ritual and using his specific energy (and authorities, over time, perhaps) is publicly publishing this technique, as he requested me to do.
He waived off the other day of invocation, since I don’t have any problems that are better geared towards his energies at the moment. I did have significantly more dreams than usual involving conflict in a variety of areas and changing scenarios that would last for hours and between wake ups. Doesn’t mean anyone else will, so keep that in mind.
Oh, not sure if it’s related, but yesterday, I went to Ford Island here due to RIMPAC and stumbled upon a dead pufferfish who’d decomposed enough, but not completely, to drop some spines into the surrounding area when the tide was out. I suspect he got caught by a shark and swam too close to shore, then got stuck in the shallows. COuldn’t tell you how long ago, but it wasn’t completely decomposed and the temp here is conducive to that sort of thing. If that was a gift, Leraje, whether the happening or my finding it, thank you.
Hail Leraje
