niaskotl

[niaskotl]

Next step, burnishing.

This can be accomplished by rubbing the outside and lip of the bowl with the back of a spoon. The clay needs to be stiff, but not yet dry. It should feel solid and cold. It is a surprisingly simple technique.

Any polished object can be used for burnishing, so you may want to use a smooth stone with energetic significance for this step.

Burnishing is primarily for aesthetics, but also has seemed to help prevent cracks when sawdust pit firing.

Once the clay is dry we will be sanding the inside to make it smooth but leave a matte finish.

Sigil bowl making, step 1.

My pottery wheel is basically a battery powered toy for kids crafts. It's slow and wobbly, but it does the job.

The bowl is formed from a lump of clay a bit smaller than my fist. I reccomend any clay that is fairly resilient. Still learning about options. This is a Standard Clay Company woodfire clay.

The bowl should be shallow. A deeper bowl will be harder to use to draw a sigil in the bottom.

You can also form a bowl by hand, for example using a coil pinch method.

Once formed, let the bowl sit until "leather hard". Should be about 24 hours.

[niaskotl]

Sigil bowl making, step 1.

My pottery wheel is basically a battery powered toy for kids crafts. It's slow and wobbly, but it does the job.

The bowl is formed from a lump of clay a bit smaller than my fist. I reccomend any clay that is fairly resilient. Still learning about options. This is a Standard Clay Company woodfire clay.

The bowl should be shallow. A deeper bowl will be harder to use to draw a sigil in the bottom.

You can also form a bowl by hand, for example using a coil pinch method.

Once formed, let the bowl sit until "leather hard". Should be about 24 hours.

[niaskotl]

More sigil bowls!

Really happy with these results from the sawdust firing. Everything fired, no breaks or cracks, even black coating, burnished surface looks great!

I think we have reached consistent quality to start selling these. Couple more experiments I want to run with the next batch.

[niaskotl]

Saturday, Nov 23, 2024 23:00 EST Waning Crescent Moon (40%) Lust Meditation on Zodiac, Court Cards, and Spheres, 48 minutes

Opened with modified Star Ruby followed by sphere of o͞ol-bä-ōg-säh then thirty paths of the icosahedron.

Again working with zodiacal correspondences of the spheres. The premise I'm working with is that it isn't so much that the sphere's themselves directly map to the zodiac so much as the court cards associated surrounding the spheres relate. After this meditation this seems to be a reasonable correspondence.

Worked through each sign of the zodiac and called on each court card adjacent to the corresponding sphere in the icosahedron.

(0/1) ♌︎, (5/11) ♒︎, (8/19) ♏︎, (11/31) ♉︎

(1/2) ♋︎, (2/3) ♎︎, (3/5) ♑︎, (4/7) ♈︎

(6/13) ♓︎, (7/17) ♊︎, (9/23) ♍︎, (10/29) ♐︎

Closed with thirty paths of the cube/octahedron and sphere of säh-ōg-bä-o͞ol.

[niaskotl]

Next pit firing experiment in process!

Lesson learned today, I must have stored the wood shavings in a place with too much humidity. They definitely did not catch fire as easily as they did last time. It took quite a lot of effort, blowing and fanning, to get them up to temperature.

I hope I got the fire hot enough to drive off the moisture. It's smoldering down now and we won't know the result until the morning.

This is the first time I am firing bowls that I have burnished. Really hope I got a successful fire on at least a couple of them.

[niaskotl]

Friday, Nov 22, 2024 16:50 EST Last Quarter Moon (51%) World Path Working with cube/octahedron, 47 minutes

Opened with modified Star Ruby followed by sphere of o͞ol-bä-ōg-säh then thirty paths of the cube/octahedron.

Back to consideration of how the twelve signs of the zodiac best map to the twelve spheres of void emanation. I believe the four "middle-pillar" spheres are the four fixed signs:

(0/1) ♌︎, (5/11) ♒︎, (8/19) ♏︎, (11/31) ♉︎

Then the remaining top four spheres are the cardinal signs:

(1/2) ♋︎, (2/3) ♎︎, (3/5) ♑︎, (4/7) ♈︎

And the final four are the mutable signs:

(6/13) ♓︎, (7/17) ♊︎, (9/23) ♍︎, (10/29) ♐︎

I worked through this in meditation and then sat and quieted the mind and counted breaths.

Closed with thirty paths of the cube/octahedron and sphere of säh-ōg-bä-o͞ol.

[niaskotl]

Thursday, Nov 21, 2024 22:20 EST Waning Gibbous Moon (59%) Judgement Path Working with ecube/octahedron, 42 minutes

It's been a bit since I have been out of action for a few days from illness. I did get some work in, but I missed documenting it.

Opened with modified Star Ruby followed by sphere of o͞ol-bä-ōg-säh then thirty paths of the cube/octahedron.

Went slowly and deliberately though the opening and closings and then just sat with the energy of it.

Closed with thirty paths of the cube/octahedron and sphere of säh-ōg-bä-o͞ol.

[niaskotl]

Learning that antibiotics have been shown to have psychoactive effects that are believed to be through their interaction with microbes of the gut. Such effects are highly variable because of the huge variation in the microbes in our guts... hrm.

I definitely had Lyme last time. Lab results showed it and it progressed all the way to Bell's Palsy. I do remember a sudden change improvement in mood as well, but I was also quite clearly recovering from Lyme.

Went to the doctor. Got prescribed doxycycline and started taking it last night. I am almost immediately feeling better, like a thick fog just lifted...

Except, here's the problem? Doxycycline should not work this fast, but I do suddenly feel better than I have in weeks. Is it a placebo effect? idk

[niaskotl]

Went to the doctor. Got prescribed doxycycline and started taking it last night. I am almost immediately feeling better, like a thick fog just lifted...

Except, here's the problem? Doxycycline should not work this fast, but I do suddenly feel better than I have in weeks. Is it a placebo effect? idk

[niaskotl]

I'm on Bluesky now: (at)nia-ain.bsky.social

I expect tumblr will remain my primary blogging platform.

[niaskotl]

Sick again.

Brain fog.

Remember that in neurolgy the pattern is that we lose the majority of functionality before we start to notice that anything is wrong.

Am I thinking clearly? Getting better or worse? I don't have the capacity or vantage point to make a determination.

Hopefully the blood tests reveal something. Rapid tests say no to flu and covid. Best guess is Lyme again.

Of course, it could just be something that just clears up on its own? I thought so last time until I developed Bell's Palsy. Don't want to do that again.

[niaskotl]

Saturday, Nov 16, 2024 21:30 EST Waning Gibbous Moon (98%) Devil Working with elemental powers and cube/octahedron, 51 minutes

Opened with sphere of o͞ol-bä-ōg-säh. This is the same ritual as I have been calling o͞ol-ōg-fĕt, but as I have refined the ritual that particular vocalization has dropped out. I need to do a new write-up.

In this meditation I worked through the emanations through the formation of the octahedron, then the transformation to a cube, and the echoed octahedron below.

I reflected on how the energies of the Star Ruby ritual may map to this geometry. I played through a number of alignments with no conclusion, but it was useful and opened a number of threads to continue in the class with Mithras Oasis tomorrow.

[niaskotl]

Friday, Nov 15, 2024 20:30 EST Full Moon (100%) Temperance Working for Disks Pip Cards, 28 minutes

Opened with sphere of o͞ol-ōg-fĕt followed by opening of the thirty paths.

Worked through each of the spheres and corresponding pip cards for the suit of Disks, calling the name of the sphere and suit and meditating upon each in turn as I have done for the other suits.

Shorter meditation tonight, not working in the cistern, but just in an upstairs bedroom.

Closed with sphere of äm-ōg-thĕr and closing of the thirty paths.

[niaskotl]

I keep meeting Wiccans around here in Connecticut. Me with my unicursal hexagram.

In my youth there may have been a weird "I'm a serious occultist and you're all woo woo weird religious."

Now it's usually name drop Crowley to explain the symbol and jump to chatting about chaos magick.

I'm so glad to have grown out of that elitist streak and just nerd out about practice and sigils.

Hrm... is it surprising that chaos magick seems to be better known has a better reputation than thelema?

[niaskotl]

Why does that airline magick post keep going around?! It was just sorta an afterthought to document a moment in my practice. It does not deserve 2,000 notes~

[niaskotl]

Reblogging to boost.

This is such important reporting.

The lead story is about how so many people have "learned" to read by a process of guessing, "three cueing", rather than learning phonetics.

It's left me wondering about other subtler cognitive effects this may have? Even among those who learned to read in spite of this "cueing" strategy? What effect does it have to teach a child that the words don't matter? Just make up a narrative and go with it?

never forget the universal rule of the order of things: People Will Not Read It

[niaskotl]

I've been doodling this variation of the diagram a bit recently. It has all the same path connections as the standard tree, but with a shift of emphasis.

This also reflects some minor changes in my understanding of the structure since last diagram.

The spheres of Object and Subject have changed to more evocative Matter and Life. I would write "Manifestation" rather than "Matter", but the word is too long to fit neatly in the diagram. Anyway, the English names are all imprecise pointers anyway.

I had followed Crowley in renaming Temperance to Art, but upon further reflection and work I have reverted to the original name and apply the name Art to the path I had called Labyrinth. The Labyrinth is still an evocative symbol for this path, but the name Art captures more of the meaning and echos the other places where Crowley's new path names move to new paths rather than rename original paths.

The path Doppel also appears, this being a shortened version of Doppelganger. It is the double. The living self that we are but paradoxically are not as we are nothing that can be named. I had called this path "Tunnel" or "Cave" previously with a sense of inhabiting or being within this other not-self, but it didn't really fit.

Structure of Void Emanation emphasizing the Star of Desire and its higher octave.