Church Day

Church is an odd thing. I don't buy a male creator god whose model of creation is mostly ladies making babies. I don't buy the dogma, the creed and all that. Not a bit. Always drawn more to the esoteric schools than the exoteric. I'd be happy to see the Vatican catch up, give away it's gold and start becoming a force for good in this world. I'd also be happy to have most Christians become environmentalists and start seriously protecting this garden of ours. Not going to happen ? Maybe.
    Today I was in church because my partner and I decided to get our 7 month old son baptized. Small affair, a few family members and friends. Baby took the ritual like a champ. I'm not a Christian, neither is my partner. I think I did this for the photographs, for the nostalgia of photographs. I don't need a ritual to remove sin from my spotless baby boy. I love ritual though. I love the incense and the iconography of the Greek Orthodox church. And I love a good post ritual feast with family and friends.
    I'm going to take the kid to church once in a while, let him suss it out. There are good things there. It's not all evil and backwards.
    That's it for today. Church isn't all bad. And it was the godparent we chose for our baby that had to renounce Satan, not us.

Local Cult

The people outside are wearing hockey jerseys in support of their team. This team, it can be argued, is also my team except I don't really follow their antics too closely. I have friends who do, who jump out of their seats at prime moments during a game, or match I think it may be called. These friends are good people so I don't begrudge them this simple pleasure. I can't say I don't care about sports because I can easily be coaxed into watching a bit and I'll get into it. It's easy to get into. It has to be. The only part, I suppose, that I may never understand is how one can continue to be excited by the win hours into the night if one isn't drunk.
    As a kid I was into it, I suppose, because I was a kid and mythology loomed large in our minds. Great players, newspaper photos, hockey cards, us and them, older siblings and fathers who were into it. All this made one lockstep into gear and follow along. Some of my little friends knew way more than the occasional name like I did. They knew scores and who was playing who and when. Divisions, play-offs, player numbers, the whole bit. I'd limp to their confident parkour.
    I had a jersey of my own. I still have it, rigid and tiny. Quality stuff. It used to mean something. Now, post bitter irony mass culture hate on, I've mellowed a bit and understand the role these things play. I won't have it but I'll dip in once in a while, a tourist in my own town.

Oh God, Not This Again

At around fifteen I got serious about deconstructing Christianity. My upbringing related religion more to cultural identity than anything else. My immigrant parents instilled in me the relationship of Hellenism to Eastern Orthodoxy. Icons in the house, church at holidays and an annual communion. Christ was infantalized as Christouli, a smaller, cuddlier Jesus. The Virgin Mary in turn was made diminutive. Bite sized for children with the appropriate down-sizing suffix. In Greek, any word can be made diminutive via suffix, even God.
    Since religion wasn't forced down my throat I was able to indulge my interest in it. I would read the bible, a copy of King James with red letters and a zipper that I thrifted. I collected iconography, enjoying the kitsch value of some and the majesty of others. Of course I read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse and explored a cursory overview of the great world religions. I read on the history of the Christian church, it's borrowing of pagan symbols from older religions. I enjoyed and employed symbolism in my art and in my life. I also viciously criticized the Church as a teenager and young adult.
    By my mid twenties I knew it was too easy of a target and I developed a more nuanced critical approach. I didn't believe in the God of the Old Testament, not being able to really get past Exodus. What a total manipulative jerk that guy was. Who can buy into this stuff ? Of course, the Song Of Songs spells things out a little different, romance and sufic flavouring. And Jesus was always ok. I never have confused the religion with it's followers. People are so incredibly disappointing at times, aren't they ?
    I was intrigued with the mystical branches of the big three, Cabala, Sufism and Gnosticism. I knew more about this stuff than my religion bashing friends. Know your enemy and all that, I say. Though I don't buy into Big Daddy, here are some things that I may buy into. A conscious universe, local gods being consciousness on an elemental, planetary, solar, galactic scale, nature being intelligent as a whole. I forget what this kind of thinking is classed as. I couldn't give two shits about any science saying otherwise. Science measures what can be measured. What can't be measured is the province of wonder. I wonder aloud and I feel it's completely allowed to do so. Besides, science is never the problem with these things. The problem rests squarely with those that have convinced themselves that they can speak for science, though science itself can never and will never rest.
    I'm still astounded by atheists my age who are still grinding axes and who have an elementary understanding of theology and mythology. Tell it to the judge. Echo chambers aren't places to hang out in. I'm more than comfortable entertaining notions such as local deities masquerading as creator gods to enslave populations, hierarchies of angelic intelligences popping by once in a while to see how the monkeys are doing, currents fed by long term focus and prayer creating structures that eventually behave like gods, a cosmos that is just doing what it's going irregardless of my opinions concerning it let alone yours.
    Recently I was asked what I believe spiritually. My first written response was a nightmare of complicated somersaults. I put it aside and returned to the text months later. I started over. I don't know what I consciously believe. There must be belief working behind the scenes, under cover. Things I take for granted, an ideology I harbour that informs my take on things. Consciously though, the closest I can come to belief is entertaining the notion that everything is alive. Now this is crazy talk, of course, simply because 'alive' is offset with 'dead'. Maybe another way of putting it is that I believe that consciousness is the ground of all being. That life is everywhere and in shapes we would hardly recognize. That there are invisible worlds that overlap and intersect our own, worlds that are populated. What this stuff has to do with god per se is still unresolved.
    Now religion ain't nothing if it ain't lived and living. A set of dogmatic rules simply won't cut it for me. A living, active spirituality is one that employs a concerted effort, a practice, ritual movement, constant re-engagement with belief, constant updating of opinion, relational interfacing with the wider world. If one lives a certain way, in keeping with the idea that the cosmos is conscious, one renders the cosmos conscious. And again, it doesn't matter what anyone else says because they may be doing the exact same thing but with their cute set of parameters. My story is mine with truth and falsehood both moot.
    It's not that the jury is out, the jury was never in. We are far flung in vastness, vastness of a scale that is incomprehensibly multi-directional. Big Bigness. Small Smallness. In-Between In-Betweenness.
    This person will wonder, speculate, worship nature, write poetry, fall in love, cry for no reason and mistrust anyone who says emphatically that they know the answer, via lab coats or prayer beads. My god comes in fractal expression, often goes plural and only demands occasional ecstatic union with all of creation. Simple stuff but bound to change.

Tiny Lessons In Magic

To make an easy sigil, write out the phrase you would like to focus upon. Strike out any letters that repeat, leaving one of each. You'll find that most letters fit easily into the shape of an H with it's top and bottom closed off, as if superimposed with an F and an L. This blocky figure eight can incorporate A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,L,O,P,S,U if you sacrifice curves. Add a few diagonals and you can accommodate K,M,N,R,V,W,Y,Z. T and Q can make an appearance with another straight line well placed.
    This, of course, is for an efficient no nonsense design, the zen of sigils. You are most welcome to stick letter to letter forming a more ornate sign. It all depends what you are after. After completing the design that pleases you or your client the most, discard the original phrase by removing any written trace of it and try to promptly put it from your mind. Now take this abstract design and sit with it, place it on your desk, put it somewhere you can see it. Meditate on it and and and.
    And what ? Well, magic can occur. The so-called essence of the original, now forgotten phrase should be firmly implanted in your less than conscious mind where it can get to work transforming your sorry life. Or not. That's the gamble. This stuff isn't science.
   
    Sit in a dim room and face a blank light coloured wall. Dress comfortably in loose fitting clothes and take a few deep breaths. Raise your hands a foot or so away from your face and look at them. Turn them about, examining your fingers well splayed, gently bent, slowly moving about. Note how the shadows fall about your hands in the semi-darkness. Bring the fingers of each hand in close proximity without letting them touch. Softly move your fingertips to and fro away from each other. Don't try to see anything in particular, simply keep breathing and looking at your hands. Look at the space between your fingers also.
    Eventually, if you are lucky or good at this game, you will see light around your finger tips that cannot be accounted for in that dim room. You'll also see strands of light from finger to finger, pooling as you near them and stretching apart as you distance them. You may also see cascades of shadows cross your palms that do not reflect what actual light may be illuminating the room. If you are particularly graced that fine evening you may be startled to see flames leap from the centres of your palms. Do not panic. Remain calm. Keep breathing. The flames may dance there for a while. Avert your eyes and you may risk letting these visions escape you. Just like a dream upon awakening they will recede into another world and you may chase these flighty apparitions for years to come, maybe reliving them maybe never being able to see them again.
    And what were they ? They were things you saw.
    Were they really there ? Well, where else were they ? Of course they were there. You saw them.
    Does this mean they represent something real ? Walk around the block and think about what 'real' means. When you get home and you are certain what is real and what is not, then you've answered your question.
    If that walk around the block was the only time you've asked yourself that question and the answer satisfied you, you really need to take more walks. Walk every so often, maybe once every year or so and take stock whether your answers are the same. If your answers are always the same, you're most probably wrong.

Plasticine

I was around five years of age when our mother, exhausted from having to tuck us in and soothe us at bedtime, rebelled. We would get into bed and yell for her to come in and dutifully soothe us to sleepiness by placing a hand on our backs to gently rock us. Well, one night she would have none of it. Who can blame her ? Two boys a year apart racing around the house and yard all day, making ludicrous demands, torturing each other, screaming and crying, climbing over mom. And when bedtime came around we would demand more, me first, you rocked him longer, rock me again. That night she just got up from the side of one of our beds and announced clearly, do it yourselves! and left the room.
    We did do it ourselves. That very night my brother and I devised a way to rock ourselves to sleep, a habit that lasted embarrassingly late into life. John had his technique and I had mine. I would sleep on my side, pillow case flap sandwiched by my hands in a slight prayer position against my cheek and I'd rock my shoulders back and forth. This rocking replaced the previous pre-sleep habit of lying on my stomach and with legs bent at the knee, kick repeatedly into the mattress. Anyway, we rocked.
    Very rarely a strange sensation overtook me. It was as if the palms of my hands, separated in reality by only a thin layer of fabric, started growing apart from each other. Very apart. It felt like the whole world was between my palms, as if they simply kept moving away from each other, with no end in sight. This rare sensation was accompanied by a distinct flavour or feeling in my mouth. I can't possibly describe it better than that. I grew up and these sensation were buried in my memory.
    As a teenager I dabbled in meditation an a similar sensation bounded back into my life. In a sitting position I would feel my body grow tall and my head would bob feet above where I knew it to be. Sometimes I felt my body rolled up, my head now sitting between my knees. On other occasions my hands felt like they were swelling up indefinitely. Imagine your hands the size of giant well rounded balloons, whose core is a thin nervy hand like structure. I experienced balloon hands a few times.
    Years later, I must have been in my mid thirties, I started casting circles as an exercise in performing private ritual. I'd trace the circle, moving clockwise and then call attention to each of the four directions by way of thanking the elements they represented. Air you're amazing, thanks for letting me breathe you, Water right on, oceans are great and you quench my thirst, Fire hot stuff, you keep me warm and you're also wicked cool, Earth where would I be without you ? Actually not like that at all. Way more purple poetics and medieval grandeur. All my fantasy reading paying off big time. Also, totally earnest. Ritual without earnestness is hollow and ineffective. I waxed poetic at each point of the compass, enthused and energized.
    This led me to experiment with prayer. I would sit myself down within the etheric bounds of the circle and roll out a fervent prayer to deities small and large, the majesty of nature from atom to galaxy cluster, thanking animals for their various attributes, thanking life itself for the privilege of being alive surrounded by great family and friends and on and on. As I did this I felt that familiar expansion set in. I was no longer the size I was when I commenced but inflating rapidly. It was all I could do to keep myself from getting so giddy that I'd snap out of it.
And then for the first time since childhood my mouth felt that familiar odd feeling. A word came to me, out from long unused parts of memory - plasticine.
    Of course I had this modelling compound as a kid. What I had clear forgotten was that I, to myself, called this expanding hand and funny mouth feeling 'plasticine' when I was small. This came back to me, head light, body expansive, mouth alive and childhood memory restored. Pliable energy body, from rocking myself to bed at night to deep vocalized prayer. We are the clay.

Candle & I

Last night I sat down in front of a candle, lit it and stayed there staring for a while. I had awoken earlier with a maddening itch on my chin, worried about bedbugs. Can it be, was I bit ? I can't tear the bed apart now searching for a clue. Once awake at two in the morning, with an itch unexplained, it's hard to get back to sleep. I was self consciously scratching my face to no avail. If I were to stay in bed I would annoy my partner so I got up and went to the other room.
    I sat down in a chair that is proving comfortable day in and day out. I read a bit. The chapter in the book I've been slowly getting through was on meditation. It stated how beneficial the practice is. Science agrees. One portion mentioned how a particular researcher meditates on the job by focusing intently on the task at hand. I realized that as I read I was elsewhere, thinking of dropping everything and trying to sit still for a few minutes. I got back to the task at hand, which was reading, and continued until the end of the chapter.
    To think about how you have to go to the bank on the way to the post office is a condition that has plagued me to no end for many years. I'm not where I am. I fidget and scratch. Sitting still is difficult. I toss and turn, pull the sheets, move about, sigh and grunt. Chairs are bothersome. It takes effort to eat slowly, breathe consciously, be here now. Reading, I anticipate finishing the book and putting it down. My eyes drift to the bottom of the paragraph, the end of the page. Relaxing is not so. I cross the house to fetch a glass of water that I drink most of a second from the sink. I go back and fill it up. I reach my seat with a sip left in my cup. Repeat.
    I was reading about meditation and had to stop myself from ditching the book to meditate. Not a bad thing that, but let me at least try to read presently. I'll meditate later. I finished the chapter and, calmly, with intent and resolve, sat down on a soft spot, the babies lamb skin, and put a beeswax candle on the floor in front of me. I lit it and stared. I stayed there. I was there. Sure, my thoughts drifted. Who cares, let them drift. Don't catch them, don't turn them into stories, let them sail away. I was surrounded by plants and the sounds in the alley stopped as I started in earnest.
    The liquid on the skin of my eyes played light shows off the flame. It took me several slow unknown movements of time for me to creak my eyelids open so no light flickered or danced. The flame stood stock still. I stared. We sat locked into each other, that candle and I. The flame did not move. I kept my eyes in that position. I breathed deep. I let the images swim by. I didn't scratch my jaw. I relaxed. Two thirty in the morning, woken from sleep by a minor annoyance.
    I felt peaceful, not tired. My waking was of some good. I went back to bed with nothing itching and I slept. In the morning I had no new spots to scratch and no welts to worry over. I thought, I will sit in front of a candle again.