The Pathworking Class

Well, this was definitely worth the trip up to Berkeley. I am almost having a hard time writing this because of how much I have swirling in my head today.

This was a class held at the lovely Ancient Ways Bookstore. When I told them "I'm here for the Pathworking class," they said, "Congratulations!"

There weren't a lot of us, but everyone seemed like nice people. Without much ado, we got into it. Thankfully, I had come when they were just starting the series. There was an explanation of what pathworking was, and then a discussion of what path would be being worked.

In this case it was Malkuth to Yesod. Crowley's Book of Thoth was read from regarding the correspondences to this path. It was from the chapter, "The Small Cards", the section on the four tens and nines--snippets of which I quote here:

The Four Tens: "These cards are attributed to Malkuth. Here is the end of all energy; it is away from the 'formative world' altogether, where things are elastic. There is now no planetary attribution to consider. So far as the Sephirah is concerned, it is right down in the world of Assiah. By the mere fact of having devised four elements, the current has derogated from the original perfection. The Tens are a warning; see whither it leads--to take the first wrong step!"

The Four Nines: "These cards are attributed to Yesod. After the double excursion into misfortune, the current returns to the middle pillar. This Sephirah is the seat of the great crystallization of Energy. But it takes place very far down the Tree, at the apex of the third decending triangle, and a flat triangle at that. There is little help from low, unbalanced spheres like Netzach and Hod. What saves Yesod is the direct ray from Tiphareth; this Sephirah is in the direct line of succession. Each of these cards gives the full impact of the elemental force, but in its most material sense; that is, of the idea of the force, for Yesod is still in Yetzirah, the formative world. Zoroaster says: 'The number Nine is sacred, and attains to the summit of perfection.' Egypt, and Rome, also, had Nine Major Deities."

Then we were led on a guided visualization based on the Persephone myth, taken from the book, "The Shining Path", by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki. We started in the Temple of Malkuth and worked our way into the Underworld. There, we got to actually meet Persephone (who was quite beautiful.) At the end of it, I felt like our little band had been on a Hobbit adventure (with me playing the part of Gimli the Dwarf.)

After the pathworking visualization and dicussion was over, a separate thing happened. A woman did a reading from "The Vision and the Voice", which, as she explained, was a series of visions that resulted from magickal workings done by Aleister Crowley. Although the imagery was beautiful, this particular piece of AC's work is going to require a lot more study from me before I understand it.

At the end of the evening, there was much discussion and explanation by some of the more well-versed in the group, which I and another novice were quite thankful for.

So today, in the afterglow, I was feeling much more grounded than usual. I found myself taking more notice of what was going on around me: these kids getting off of school, that guy driving the truck, those houses going by as I rode on the bus--all are part of everything floating in the Malkuthian "soup".

"...and i will like to end my SEARCHING..."

I got this at Friendster today--the spelling has not been changed!

"with a greate pleasure and excitement it gives me

to write u this note of mine, well am graduate in
international relation,am from nigeria and dont
mind, having u as my friend out there if u dont
mind .................
and it took ..........me time to read everything
that u
wrote inside ur page,so i went through it and it
s
lovely wise saying compare to what i like
dont mind and am 36 yrs old.......... I really love
ur
smile out there and
ur shape as well (uh, I posted a pic of Belle from Beauty & the Beast!) well,lady i will like u to holla me and tell me
what
u think about been ur friend down there
concening with what i read from ur page......i
love
evryrthing u wrote inseide, really goes
the
way i like and i will like to end my SEARCHING
if u
dont mind.
further,i work at the stock brokers, company so
am
the assitance to the MD.
so lady u as well as send me some off line
msg
through my chating wchich is (name withheld to protect the innocent) u can
send me an off line msg so lady i will like to say
some thing that well make me happy
so bye 4 now and stay cool
(Name withheld to protect the innocent)

In other news: I will be attending a pathworking class tonight--will take notes and post her

My Goat Worshipping Love Cultist name is Sister Chupacabra!.
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Sister Chupacabra!

Sister Chupacabra! It must be said with an exclamation!

This reminds me of a really old movie with Ringo Starr in it where he was like a member of the Mexican Mafia or something, and there were these Mexican dominatrix women and I can't remember the name of the movie for the life of me but it was one of those weird movies that they used to show on USA network's "Night Flight" which was on during a really weird/stupid period of my life where I used to stay up all night on the weekends watching the weirdest tv shows I could find and actually smoking oregano and taking eight exedrin in a pathetic attempt to get high...

You think you've blown out all those particular brain cells and then your memory bank serves up something like this.

Card of the day: Queen of Cups--Sister Chupacabra! is a woman of tremendous intuition, capable of great depths of emotion and love. My minions, you will bow down and worship Sister Chupacabra! (Eyes aflame with Anna Magnani-esque passion.)

Grab the nearest book.
Open the book to page 23.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the text of the sentence in your journal...
...along with these instructions.

"She started screaming at the bridge where Uncle David's house was, and immediately Uncle David's wife, Lena, came out onto the bridge and answered in kind."

Sidney Poitier--This Life

Saturday Night Tarot Hoedown

Well, I'm a day late, (and LJ was in read-only mode for a while, so it's even later than that,) but I have some good stuff for you tonight, buddies.

We start with a new feature. It may not appear every week, but I will be combing the internet for good news stories featuring Tarot.

Tarot in the News: Tonight's top story reminds me of years ago when I was a very young Hermgirl. I had a best friend at the time (a now ex best friend) who had run up a tab with a fortune teller. I was asked (and being the naive, trusting, generous young'un that I was, I complied) to take my last 27 bucks out of the bank to help cover the debt.

This story also makes me think that if I ever do become a professional Tarot reader, I will never allow "tab running". I think that getting psychic readings is one of the kind of things people can be really spendthrift about--it would be unethical, I think, to contribute to someone's spending problem.

And, in keeping with the past week's political theme, I have come up with a new spread!

~The Political Spread~

This spread is good for situations in which you need to map out a strategy, either against an opponent, or if you are making some kind of deal with another person or group of people.

The numbers represent card positions, the positions marked with an X are just there for spacing purposes.

7
3 1 8 2 4
5 6

1. Your advantages


2. Their advantages


3. Your disadvantages


4. Their disadvantages


5. Foundation of the situation


6. Consensus of all concerned


7. Spiritual/psychological energy surrounding the situation


8. What you need to drive home for the "win"

I actually don't have that kind of a situation in my life this week, so I will just be doing a Joey Tribiani spread on myself:

1. Seven of Cups--There are several possibilities before me. I must remain focused to choose wisely.


2. Seven of Wands--Success and victory are mine for the taking! If I take courage and am determined, I will hold my own agaist any difficulties.


3. Knight of Pentacles--Slow and steady wins the race. Not a lot going on here, but my patient nature lets me plod on methodically into good things.


4. Queen of Wands--This stands for the charming, firey natured, passionate, woman of action that I want to be. If I follow the trail of the last three cards, this is what I am likely to become.

What do the cards have to say this evening?

Card of the Day: Six of Pentacles--Business success, prosperity. Life is being generous to you.

I think this may have to do with the fact that I found a digital camera for a lot less money than I was originally going to pay. In other words, Sunfell, the Goddess Bargaina has smiled upon me.

Long and preachy, but oh well...

By the original poster's own admission, he was feeling full of vitriol this morning, and is a little more resigned now, but I felt his words were very appropriate, echoing the level of anger many of us are feeling, and I got permission to quote him here:

"So, congratulations, people of America. Now we know that gay people are so fucking terrifying that a misdirected preemptive war that engendered more terrorist activity than it eliminated, a president who makes jokes about missing WMDs while American soldiers and Iraqi civilians die, an attack on our civil liberties, and trillions in defecit are just dandy. Just so long as two men don't fall in love. Fucking rot."

And this is one of the saddest things of all. It means that guys like Pat Robertson did a damn fine job of promoting prejudice.

We seem to live in a country of lemmings. The majority of people rely on the media and celebrities for everything they do, from the way they wear their clothes, hair, and makeup, to the books they read (Oprah's book club, anyone?), to the candidates they support.

And while all of this is incredibly sad (I found myself having a good cry today) it does not mean we should give up the fight, or spew hatred at the USA and say you're going to leave the country and that everyone who still chooses to call themselves an American is stupid (I had to unfriend someone who was spewing extremely hateful junk like this today.)

Certainly, anger is the mood of the day, and we should all feel justified in letting off steam. Having said that, sometimes things don't go our way, even if we do get off our butts and work hard to try to change things for the better.

And when that happens, that's not the time to roll up into a fetal position, and say "Screw you guys, I'm goin' home!" like Cartman on South Park. That's the time you are supposed to dig in your heels, and commit yourself to continue working.

Nothing worthwhile ever comes easy.

Card of the day: Two of Wands--this is someone who has reached maturity. Someone who has the stick-to-it-iveness to push their dreams through into reality. Someone willing to look at the Big Picture. I believe today, of all days, is a day we are being asked by the Universe to be Two of Wands people.

As my spiritual guru, Aleister Crowley, says in The Book of Lies:

"Hunger thou, O man, for the infinite: be insatiable even for the finite; thus at The End shalt thou devour the finite, and become the infinite.
Be thou more greedy than the shark, more full of yearning than the wind among the pines.
The weary pilgrim struggles on; the satiated pilgrim stops.
The road winds uphill: all law, all nature must be overcome.
Do this by virtue of THAT in thyself before which law and nature are but shadows."

Return of the Daily Card

Just sitting here listening to Air America on the Quake, thought this would be a good time to do a card of the day:

Judgement--Definitely in line with the idea of news being waited for, renewal, and a time of seeing the Big Picture, and one's role in the scheme of things.

Sorry, I don't think I can get the projected results for Ohio with the cards...

Happy Halloween

Well, happy Halloween everybody. I was surfing around and came across something very apropos. A special spread for today, and a demo in interpreting it, by way of doing a reading on myself.

~The Halloween Spread~

Well, as they say, tonight is the night when the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest. And it seems as though the spirits have definitely had their say here.

1. Two of Wands--what I see here is that I am a person with a lot of dreams and plans--I am a woman with a vision. Now, how this becomes tricking others is I sometimes spend too long in dreamland. Of course, the ultimate trick (wouldn't this be a surprise to my folks) is that I actually have the power to make those dreams a reality.


2. The Hierophant--I am definitely a spiritual animal. This being my soul card, it has a lot of significance. I believe in what I would call an "Inner Teacher." This is what I think of when I get this card. I believe that the spiritual learning I have done so far and will continue to do gives me a certain amount of authority to feel confident about what I know. How this can become tricking myself is when I sometimes am stubborn, set in my ways, and behave like a Dubya who can't admit when they're wrong.


3. The Devil--The way I can treat others better is by examining my motivations. Am I being selfish and greedy? Of course, I sort of like being selfish and greedy, but, oh well.


4. Seven of Wands--This makes me want to break out into that old church chorus--"Be bold, be strong, for the Lord thy God is with thee..." Anyway, I can best serve myself by being bold and courageous and suffering the slings and arrows because by doing so I will push through to the place I really want to be in life.


5. The Magician--Last night or the night before I was watching the Matrix again on tv, I've decided that this film is one of my favorites in recent history. What this card reminds me of here is that moment where they are watching Neo fight with Agent Smith on the monitors and one guy says, "What's he doing?" and I think it's Morpheus that says, "He's starting to believe." This card represents that moment when you have to accept the mantle of your Powerful Imagination. Choose to rely on your intuition, your skills, be confident in the power of your Will. Know that anything is possible, for this world that we walk around in is nothing but the construct of the human mind.

So I will end by paraphrasing Neo:

"My name isn't Mr. Anderson...it's HERMGIRL!"

IO PAN!!!