blackthornwren

[blackthornwren]

All I know is my cat got stuck behind the shower curtain and couldn't find his way out this morning and the day has just been one long continous temper tantrum from him ever since.

[blackthornwren]

Nacer de nuevo by Remedios Varo (1960)

[blackthornwren]

And you should, as the core of it all, let go of expectations for your Deities. Let go of what you’ve consumed from the books, let go of authorities, let go of explanations, let go of the neatness - and embrace chaos. Embrace the wilderness which is in itself God, call a name and wait for an answer. What voice sounds like home?

Gods will come multifaceted, iridescent, impalpable. Gods will break rules and expand where a mind burdened by expectations can’t follow. A chimera of a myriad faces might not want to always show only one side. Gods will change. Gods will surprise.

If the nature is untamed, so are its Deities. The wilderness has many names for each of them, a prism to choose a side of. Feeling over explaining, embracing over conforming, preparing over expecting.

[blackthornwren]

About the Black Dragon posts...

If they seem a bit vague, it's intentional - these spirits determine what can and cannot be shared openly and I typically end up changing so much of my wording before I can share anything. It's frustrating, especially when I have so much more I would like to say and what I actually am saying is very little.

My goal so far is mostly to re-examine my early experiences and give myself a frame of reference I can look back on. We'll see how far I can actually go with that...

My other reason is to go back and work it all again; now with more understanding, depth, and nuance I've found since initially approaching these crossroads.

In many ways, these early steps resembled other working magical systems in that there is a path to walk, and at each cardinal direction, a door to walk through. Spirits at these threshholds are to be approached in a particular order, the lamp acting as a beacon to call them, lighting their way towards me...

The Black Dragon work is (in a sense) ancestral and necromantic, akin to burying yourself in a cemetery for the sake of being devoured by the dead who hunger there.

[blackthornwren]

I miss when I would get Tumblr asks that actually said things and weren't just digital panhandling scams.

[blackthornwren]

An Element of Pattern

"Six thousand years ago, Neolithic cultures erected stone circles and henges across Europe – a practice that they refined over thousands of years. Many sites were used in solar and lunar ceremonies, with alignments orientated to the solstices. Others mark certain constellations or important clusters such as the Pleiades. Without a doubt Neolithic peoples saw many of the same patterns in the night sky as we see today. They mentally mapped the constellations and fitted them into their cosmological viewpoint. Their reality was not confined to the rational and logical; they drew little distinction between the world of phenomena and magic. As well as the numerous henges and cairns, these peoples left us mysterious carved designs: cups and rings, furrows and hollows, many of which form star-like clusters on exposed faces of stone. An element of pattern exists within the chaos of these designs. Certain cups are highlighted by adding concentric circles around them, while others remain as simple hollows. Though their placement might seem arbitrary, surely there was a point to them. Picked out using harder stone, these would have taken considerable time to create. Perhaps the noise that was made, as stone struck stone, provided a ritualistic element in their creation. Are these clusters maps of the heavens? The Spirit world? Both?"

– Dave Stone, "Starlit Stories"

see also: #dave stone, #stane

[blackthornwren]

Saadi Youssef, tr. by Sinan Antoon & Peter Money, from Nostalgia, My Enemy; "A difficult variation"

[Text ID: "sunset gives me the opulence of roses / and I ask about you. I ask about you"]

[blackthornwren]

Walking the Dragon’s Head - Part 2

The fang wields the poison that ignites the flame. The adept will take the venomous fang into themselves to lose their grasp of the preconceived.

This is, as Giles describes it, “replacing the rationality of logic with an unleashed imagination”. This is an affliction upon your mundane self: it is actively working to disassemble yourself - to be looking in the mirror and not recognizing the form staring back. Something to be endured, breaking the barriers.

Infecting and unraveling. Distortion and dismemberment.

This is a changing maze of locks and keys, and it begins with unlocking the adept’s own understanding of their self and flesh - this is not so much an unlocking for the sake of opening doors, but unlocking for the sake of taking up the dagger and cutting away the old, recognizable flesh - becoming infused with the absence.

This is death in service of spirits, and while all points of the dragon’s head are meant to enact this change - this preparing of the vessel - the transition undertaken here is perhaps the most prominent of these.

It is important to note that with this body of work, at every step, the seeker is inviting the emissaries of the corpus to afflict, infect, and injure for the sake of attuning to this current.

[blackthornwren]

Marjorie Cameron: From Songs For The Witch Woman (undated)

[blackthornwren]

And just like that, one day you wake up and all your mutuals have been flagged for sensitive content.

[blackthornwren]

Guardian of the Tomes

[blackthornwren]

Unfortunately 😅 and even worse, if it ever truly goes out of print the cost will get much worse (resellers) so this is probably the most "affordable" they'll ever be.

I definitely don't recommend it for people who aren't sure if they will actually work the books.

Psst, where did you happen to pick up your copy of the book of the black dragon? I cant find it in my price range ;0;

I got it directly from Atramentous Press. They're currently out of stock at the moment but they're working on releasing a new run of the book.

In the meantime, I completely understand the frustration, especially with the cost. You can keep an eye on eBay and Miskatonic books, abebooks actually has a feature to sign up for an email whenever a seller posts a listing for the book you're looking for too.

There are also Facebook groups for occult book collectors and oftentimes users post listings for books they no longer need and want to sell - I've found that some people are open to trade, if you have something they're looking for. Some folks may be willing to accept payment in installments (this is also true of book listings on etsy).

Unfortunately, the Black Dragon series isn't likely going to ever be cheap - there's just too many in the collection, it's not finished yet, and given Hamilton-Giles' close affiliation with Chumbley it falls in that category of cultus sabbati-like grimoires.

(*I just want to clarify I don't mean cheap as a bad thing. If there were a $20 paperback version I'd be soooooo on board. There's a weird notion around these books that the cost adds to the magic or mystique of it and I'm not a fan of it)

[blackthornwren]

love the word lackluster. well it sucks because it’s not shiny

[blackthornwren]

Mercy Brown - The Vampire of Exeter

Late 19th century Rhode Island was known for its small villages, hamlets, forest settlements and quaint fishing communities. Rhode Island was almost famous for its vampires.

In 1883, the wife of farmer George Brown, Mary, died of a mysterious illness. Six months later his daughter Mary Olive also took ill and perished.

For several years, our good farmer Brown thought that additional misfortune had passed over his family. It was not to be.

His youngest daughter Mercy succumbed to the illness several years later, and almost a year after her death, his son Edwin became sick. At this point the villagers suspected malefica, or that some noxious spirit was plaguing the family. They concluded in the end that one of the family was a vampire and must be stopped.

They exhumed Mary and Mary Olive who were in the expected state of decay. It is said that Mercy, however, was exceedingly fresh. It appeared that her hair and nails had grown and when prodded with a shovel fresh blood bloomed from the wound.

They cut out the vampire's heart and burned it on a nearby rock in the cemetery, ending her reign of terror. The townsfolk added the ashes of her heart to young Edwin's medicine, but none the less he died two months later. At least there was no longer a worry about a vampire.

[blackthornwren]

"cozy game" maybe for YOU. I have spreadsheets

[blackthornwren]

My boss, yelling: I'm funny, damnit!

Me: Funny people don't have to announce that they're funny, they just are.

[blackthornwren]

If there's one piece of advice I can give, it's to deconstruct your practice regularly.

How much of it is actually useful, how much of it applies to your spirits or cosmology?

Who or what do you neglect regularly? What areas need more attention, more focus? What flames need to be tended?

Is there anything that no longer serves a purpose? Can anything be simplified to greater effect? How much time do you devote to strengthening your core skills and foundations?

It's about cutting away the dead pieces, so that there is room for new growth to flourish.