Ah gods, has it really been that long?

Dear Reader,

I apologize that I dropped off the internet for over a month. I was severely depressed and dealing with a very challenging medication change. The side effects were the hardest part. Aside from the utter exhaustion that had me sleeping through the night and all day, I had a lot of difficulty focusing. The most exasperating bit about this new medication on the witchy front is the fact that it has filled my head with utter silence. I am head-blind and having difficulty connecting with the gods. 

As such, I have resorted to alternate means (which I will describe) and I'm trying to get a feel for using these means more often. They say that once you learn something, it is like riding a bicycle. They are wrong because you forget details and snippets of how it works depending on the length of time since you've done the thing. Astral temples, liminal communication where your mind meets the general psychic space of the area, and such are not easy exercises. It is, however, very effective once you get the hang of it and working while in trance states. 

In the grips of depression, I was struck with powerful waves ennui and I contemplated shutting down all my blogs. I didn't do it because I didn't have enough proverbial spoons to do so. I am not up to my full spoon count for a given day. I'm pretty sure that I am going to have days that a ten minute writing session is going to be too much. But this is the beginning, which is always hard. I anticipate doing my writing and getting some texts out for you all to read.

As I glanced at my multivolume Book of Shadows, I realized that I had enough research in there to write several serious papers about occult topics. As such, I am going to and try to organize and filter everything so that it makes sense. I had been contemplating going back to school for my master's degree in divinity, but I don't think I have the energy to be that ambitious. So, I'm just going to crank out papers based on my research and peddle them to public resources where they can get peer review and basically do the work for a master's thesis on my own time. I was considering Cherry Hill seminary but the limitations of doing the work there is things like timing and technological resources.

Med-Moura is coming, what are your plans?

Dear Reader,

Med-Moura is a break in the discipline and fasting of Moura. It is a time for the celebration of mother of all sort and of spiritual leadership. We pause in the austerity of Moura to look around and see the beauty left in the world and the wonders that remain despite Our Lady's journey into the Darkness. And we give thanks. This is by no means a bacchanal and a time of wild delight. We are still encouraged to maintain self-discipline and to prepare for the Holy day of Kala, when the Daughter dies and her body is desecrated by being hung as an ornament on the World Pillar. We are exhorted to prepare ourselves for Hiatus, the time when all is spiritually void of meaning and prepare to pray to Marya to rescue her Daughter Anna from absolute oblivion.

Because it is a leap year, here in the northern hemisphere, Med-Moura falls on March 4th. If you can, today, gather your elements for your celebration and take time to put them up late in the evening this way you can wake to Med-Moura's delights. And then take them down and place them in a safe place until next year. Through Med-Moura, we breath relief that all has not flown into the outer darkness of chaos and Khear. And we gird ourselves for the challenges of the upcoming weeks. 

Flowers for Moura.

 Dear Reader,

I have a habit of keeping some manner of flowers on my altar as an offering. They're artificial flowers because as soon as flowers pop up in my garden they either get eaten by the deer or picked by the neighbors. And there's a good part of the year that snow just won't let them come up. Because I use artificial flowers, it meets the bloodless sacrifice requirement (it's a monetary one instead). I was taught the following flowers have these meanings which make them applicable to the time from Purple Monday to Hiatus.

Tweedia: spiritual growth, innocence, and grace (during the period between Purple Monday and Moura Day)

Pansies (purple): contrition, penance, grace, love (during the period between Moura Day and Kala)

Gladiola (purple): royalty, strength, grace (Kala through Hiatus)

Daffodils: Spring, rebirth, renewal (Eastre)

Moura rosary meditations.

Picture from Pexels, Ksenia Chernaya, photographer

Dear Reader,

It is the holy, yet mournful season of Moura. As Our Lady descends into the Netherworld, she faces challenges that all make for strong meditative foci while reciting the Rosary.

Decade One: The temptation of Our Lady and her fear in the face of it.

Decade Two: The abasement of Our Lady as she is stripped of her signs of power and authority.

Decade Three: The humiliation of Our Lady as she is forced to kneel before the Dark Queen and suffer the insults of the Dark Queen's daughters as if she were not royalty herself.

Decade Four: The death of Our Lady. This one is pretty self explanatory. 

Decade Five: The desecration of Our Lady's corpse by hanging it upon the world pillar.

These meditative foci can be used at other times of the year. But they are especially well timed for Moura, Kala, and Hiatus.

Let us consider the time between Luciad and Moura.

Dear Reader,

At the time of Luciad, Our Lady Anna steps onto the iron wheel of incarnation. To move through the different layers of Creation, she must take on different forms. Indeed, she must move through the whole of Creation to reach the Netherworld and where the Abyss of Khear awaits her. 

On one hand, many will rightly argue that Our Lady is present within our hearts and therefore in the world. This is a powerful mystery in its own right but to focus only on this one is to ignore her sacrificial descent. Because of her descent through the whole of Creation, there comes a time where she will incarnate in this layer of Creation. There are infinite ways she might incarnate. Perhaps as a bird, perhaps as a sleeping seed, or as a human child that breathes three breaths and then dies. We can not to know how or in what form Our Lady will incarnate in this layer of Creation. But it will happen and her shining light will bless our layer of Creation in her infinite mercy.

At Moura, she has reached the outer reaches of the Netherworld. Moura-eve we celebrate her successful journey to those dark gates even as we prepare for the solemnity of her journey through the Netherworld.

Disregard my incense recipe for Loki!

 Dear Reader,

If you happen to have a copy of my incense recipe for Loki, throw it away and don't use it. In my ignorance, I included cinnamon which is toxic to burn. Please, for the love of what is holy and the good of your health, don't burn cinnamon. It can have very negative effects on you if you breathe it in.

I apologize for a lack of Divination related posts.

Dear Reader,

I have not given up the practice of divination. Indeed, I am still deeply in love with this aspect of magical study. My problem is I am rather stumped on what direction to go next. I have to review the plethora of posts I have made on this topic to find the loose threads that got dropped so that I can pick them up and work them out.

It has been difficult to do that because of two things: 1 - there are so many posts to go through from the years that it is overwhelming. 2 - my health issues are getting in the way of posting things or really doing any writing except for that which is therapy related. It's kinda bad, y'all. I'm working with my doctors and specialists to get it sorted out. I'm eyeballs deep in alligators trying to make handbags while they're gnawing on me. It's not fun. But I'm trying.