A Sabbatical Hodge Podge

A Sabbatical Hodge Podge: The Problems of the Eightfold Sabbat System

Why Your Eightfold Sabbat System of Worship is Killing the Spirit of Genuine Paganism- and the Witchcraft That Sometimes Lives Inside It.

Copyright © 2009 by Robin Artisson
http://www.robinartisson.com

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Beating a Well-Known Horse

It has become the mainstream currency of neo-Pagans everywhere to follow the calendrical observations of the "eightfold sabbat" year. Even though I feel like I'm beating a well-known horse by saying this, those eight sabbats are (beginning with the darkest) Yule, Imbolg, Eostre, Beltane, Midsummer, Lammas, Mabon (or the Autumn Equinox), and Samhain. Four are equinoxes and solstices; the other four are (today) positioned directly between the four solar events, and called “cross-quarters.”

Ever since my first days being cognizant of neo-Pagan religions, I've had issues with this system, and those issues turned into a full-blown illness when I did the research behind the creation of the Eightfold Sabbat system. I won't do like I normally do and write eighteen paragraphs before I get to my actual point. I'll just say it: the system, as it is, is unforgivably new-agey and invented.

Now, let me unpack what I just said. Let me start by saying "hey guys- if you like your eight sabbats, then by all means, keep celebrating them." But don't walk around thinking that you're doing anything remotely similar to Pagans from pre-christian times. These eight "sabbats" were assembled by Gardner and team for you, about 60 or so years ago. He was inspired by many then-available sources, chiefly his pals in the revivalist Druid movement- a movement that is far more Christian than Pagan, and whose luminary members and founders were always church-attending men.

The eight sabbats, as they stand, are a hodge-podge of Germanic and Celtic holy days. Before I unpack this, let me say that "Germanic" and "Celtic" are not words that refer to unitary, singular cultural traditions, but very, very broad terms that refer to linguistically-related tribes and nations of people which numbered in the hundreds. The chances that all Germanic Pagans, everywhere and at all times, kept some sacred "wheel" of rituals every year are so tiny as to be negligible. The very same thing goes for the many peoples that we now call "Celtic".

The Summer Begins Twice This Year

There is no doubt in anyone's mind that many Germanic peoples saw the Yule-tide as a very sacred time. There is no doubt that Beltaine in Ireland was a sacred time for the peoples of that Island, at least around the time of the visits of the probably fictional "St. Patrick." We do know that, historically, SOME Celtic and Germanic peoples celebrated these seasons: we know that there was a Lugh's Commemoration Fair, a Lughnassadh, in ancient Ireland, and a shadow of a cognate in Christian times. We know that Midsummer stands tall in the folkloric memory of Germanic-descended people. A few other notable nights and seasons stand out. For instance- we know that the Romans, in all places where Roman culture was strongly spread, celebrated Saturnalia around the time of the Winter Solstice- just like the Germanic Yule.

But when you look at history more soberly, you will discover quickly that taking the Celtic Beltaine, and putting it on a calendar with a Germanic Midsummer or Yule leads to the creation of a calendar that is neither historical, culturally accurate, nor very respectful to the broad ancestral metaphysics of either culture-group. Beltaine, the celebration of Bel's summer fire, seen as a great fertility drama by most neo-Pagans today, stands as the crown of the neo-Pagan conception of the "Celtic Summer": to follow it with the equivalent Germanic "First of Summer" festival- Midsummer- is nothing short of redundant.

One culture-group, at certain times and in certain places, had their summer's beginning on Beltaine, and the other, at Midsummer. These were different cultures with many different ideals, different Gods, and different destinies. They blended together eventually, sure- but they maintain, even now, their own unique treasures to offer, and they can't offer those without people who respect them enough to approach them on their own merits. Celebrating Samhain, followed by Yule- two prominent festivals that include the return of the dead kindreds or ancestors to dwell with the living- is also a bit redundant; your ancestral dead are probably annoyed by being moved twice in the space of seven weeks.

Now, if you're an "eight wheeler", and unless you're claiming to follow a "Celtic-Germanic" Pagan reconstructionist path, what are you really doing? And why on earth would you invent a modern "Myth cycle" with oak kings and holly kings and Persephones and Ishtars, to follow the eight hodge-podge sabbats, as though the ancients believed in any way similarly?

People are passing off "Paganism" (and worse yet, "witchcraft") as gleeful talks about "The God" (that annoying nobody-everybody God of Wiccans) getting married on Beltaine, and reaching the "height of his power" on Midsummer, and blah blah snore- people, please- spare my poor heart. We're better than this. We don't have to "invent forward"- we can "go back" and see what is still there, written for us in the sacred seasons and in the land. We can "go into" the land around us, and see more. What we'll see is important because it's what the ancients saw, before they began doing the things that we eagerly seek out ourselves now.

Each of these sacred seasons that people toss around, within the context of its own generalized cultural group, has its own mythology- it does not "link" to others with invented neo-Pagan Godforms. Every season and time contains its own mythology, its own sacred powers, its own moods and forces. They are universes all their own, not just steps on a stone-lined path.

I know some of you have heard this sort of rant before. Many of you have not, or have and don't care. I care about getting to the real treasures that have come down to us from the past, and I know for a fact that over-inventing modern contexts and overlays for the treasures of the past is the fastest way to obscure the power and wisdom that is sitting right there, calmly and simply, waiting for people to live it again.

Lugh’s Festival Has Nothing To Do With Anglo-Saxon Loaves

When we examine the origins of these "solar" holy days and festivals, like Yule and Midsummer, even a fool can see that they were inspired by ancient people watching the sun's apparent motions in the sky, and what impact that had on earthly life and weather. When we examine the origins of agrarian festivals and culturally-encapsulated festivals like Lughnassadh or Beltaine, we can see that they were not solar; they were not timed to equinoxes and solstices; they were cultural relics of the many Celtic peoples- particularly the ancient Irish- and they have their origins in the mythical life of those people.

The very widespread Celtic God Lugus, in his Irish hypostasis of Lugh, declares a time of mourning and of competition and games for his foster-mother, who gave her life for the people of a particular region of Ireland, and thus was the mythical origin of Lughnassadh, the commemoration that was established by Lugh.

This is not a universal Pagan holy day. It belonged (and in a sense, still belongs) to a specific culture. The Anglo-Saxon harvest rites of Lammas are not the same thing as Lughnassadh. They are not a "Germanic equivalent"- the Germanic peoples who came to settle in England had no equivalent to Lugh's ordered commemoration event. And they might have been as confused as I am about people leaping all over a disordered year with all these various "holy days" dragged together and forced on one another, as though there was some secret universal pattern to them.

We have no evidence that all Celts or all Germans in every Celtic or German community followed a "four-fold" year. In fact, we don't have a single historical record saying that anyone in Northern Europe "came together this many times a year on these days" for this or that sacred day or ritual. What we do have, however is the common sense to study the everyday lives of these various peoples, and, by adding an understanding of how central nature and the land were to Pagan religions all over Europe (and the rest of the world) we can reconstruct a more sensible vision of what their years might have been like.

To begin with, when you rely on herds and crops for your very life, weather-cycles become very important. But weather-patterns are not everywhere the same: what is a killing cold in England is a balmy day on the shores of the Mediterranean. It was the cold that may have threatened life in the north, but it was drought and heat that threatened life in the Mediterranean world. Their planting seasons and growing seasons were different. What they grew was different. What they hunted, fished, and herded was different, all over. Gods and spirits associated with these animals, crops, and weather were different. They were not all faces of "one divinity" or even two, or three, or ten. They were countless, and unique to each community. The Goddess of the Land was not even called by the same name everywhere, even within cultural boundaries.

This is the key issue: how unique genuine Pagan religion was to each community, or tribe, or grouping of people. Neo-paganism destroys the very fabric of the traditional Pagan vision by trying to bang together a "sacred year", without recourse to the context of small village and community life in ancient times, and even in recent times. There was no internet; no phones; various practices and customs sprang up all over the world, in response to the unique environmental and spiritual conditions of many places, without the other places even knowing about them or understanding them. We are speaking of a non-standardized, totally decentralized way of approaching the natural spirituality of life.

A Hammer Hallows Our Fields… A Penis Hallows Yours

What genuine Pagan people living in a village somewhere in the middle of the woods and fields in the middle of Ancient Germany would have "done" for their community "calendar" is radically different from what Pagans on the top of Norway would have done, or Pagans in Iceland, or Pagans in Britain, or Pagans in Rome. Their local weather- and thus the start of their "harvest" season, would have been different from Pagans in other parts of Europe. What local land-spirits and powers were unique to their community would have been the ones receiving their harvest or planting sacrifices. What larger "Gods" or "Goddesses" they culturally believed in would have been invoked in various ways, but probably not in the same ways, or at the same times, as the Germanic peoples just a hundred miles away, in another part of that same region.

Iceland is a good example: the God that most of the farmers of Iceland prayed to for the well-being of their crops was Thor. He was the God that sent rain and fertilized fields. In southern Sweden, the God farmers traditionally relied on the most was Frey or Ing, for the same goals: fertility and well-being for the land. And beyond these national Gods, whose names were known generally by all Swedes or Icelanders, were the local divinities and land-spirits that only the people in those communities knew and sacrificed to. Those local powers had every bit of say over what grew in their land. They were a crucial part of the old Heathen religious complexes.

Roman and Greek sacred days and seasons were and are radically different from Northern European ones. I don't need to bother going into the very well-known Roman calendar and pointing out how it bears no resemblance at all to anything the Northern Peoples were doing, with almost one exception: Saturnalia coincides in a general way with the Yule-time, and has similar themes. But this can be explained in various ways. It is not an outgrowth of a universal "Pagan year wheel".

Gerald Gardner and the Wiccans (as said before) working in tandem with their Revivalist Druid friends (those Druids who believed in the Helio-Arkite pseudo-pagan christian mythology) gave us the "eightfold sabbat" system. And before you think I'm just against it full stop, let me say a few things that are good about it.

Gardner, like all of the people of Britain now, was a mix of ancient native British and Germanic bloodlines. One might make a case that all Europeans from Northern and Northwestern Europe (as well as Spain and Italy) have Germanic in them, considering it was the German people who migrated to all these places, conquered them (yes, even conquered Spain and Italy- the Visigoths settled Spain and the Ostrogoths ruled Italy, bringing their Gods, culture, and having sex with the local women) and created the "Europe" we know now.

By making a "half kinda-Celtic and half sorta-Germanic" Calendar for his vision of a new Witchcraft, Gardner was in a way being true to his mixed-blood roots. And, for a time, all over Europe, Celtic peoples did celebrate their own local holidays alongside Germanic settlers who followed their own ways. Thus, the folkloric and historical tradition will mention "Lammas" and "Midsummer" alongside things like "Samhain"- but the chances of some small tradition of "witches", the likes of which Gardner claimed to meet, following a clockwork calendar of four Celtic and four Germanic holidays are nil and none.

The Witch of That Small Village… Somewhere Out There…

The local witch of later times, after the names "Celtic" and "Germanic" meant little and national names like "English" or "French" were in place, would certainly have gone to the harvest festivals or his or her community. That festival may have coincided with some more ancient Pagan festival, but it was no longer the same. Some of the same powers may have been there- some of the same impulses, and even some of the same practices (big bonfires, corn dollies, feasting, or what have you) but this is not an instance of "survival" of Pagan rites. Our fictional witch may, in fact, be the only person at the harvest fair that still senses the older powers and spirits of the time- I would hope they would- but again, we are a very long distance from an ancient "Lugh's Commemoration" to the local "St. Agatha's Harvest Home".

That witch might have recognized the power of these times- for they all have power- and used them, as I do myself in my own life, to assay trance work and wisdom-gaining workings. But then, all times have their own power- not just special days. I think that the folk-calendar, which does in fact contain a hodge-podge of older-rooted holy days from different cultures, has its own unique wisdom. But there was no one "folk calendar" for all of Europe. Not now, and not ever. And it certainly didn't contain a "wrap-around story" that told of the progress of some singular Goddess or God.

This modern attempt to bolster Gardner's calendar with new mythology is forlorn, because it is miles from the Land itself, from the unique spirit of unique places. The "witchcraft"- the native sorcery- of European folk-customs, ancient Pagan spirits, folk-beliefs, and the whole mystical spirit of ancient Europe as it came into the modern day, it will flee before people that automatically ignore the individual sacred lands and places, the subtle messages of individual customs or lores, in favor of some "over-arching" new Pagan calendar that sweeps up the biggest chunks of history, and sweeps away the divine, mystical details.

Gerald was, in his own way (along with those pseudo-Druids) among the first Pagan reconstructionists. And that's good. Without meaning to do so, they certainly inspired a lot of research into the Pagan origins of certain times. But in doing so, they obscured the power of local, land-based rituals, rites, and yearly observations, and how important those are to people today who are fortunate enough to take part in them, and how important they were to the ancients.

Paganism was never meant to be a centralized religion with a liturgical year, like the Catholic year or the Jewish calendar. It was meant to communicate something of the uniqueness of each and every stand of trees, field, or corner of the woods. It was meant to engage every person who lives on a land, grows their own food, or sees their own local wildlife. It was meant to be an expression of each individual's life and land, and their family, and their community. This is what organic religion is. This is why the Gods are not all "one"- they are there, in the land, hills, and mountains of many lands, and in the group-soul of many people, following them on their long migrations. They are in the storms, the skies, and the seas. They are living out their ageless lives alongside human beings, being met by humans everywhere humans go.

Pope Cernunnos

It seems to me that too many neo-Pagans don't see how similar they've become to Christianity or Islam or Judaism: they rush to ram all their Gods into "one", so as to keep some ridiculous claim on a monotheistic-ish seeming religion, in what can be described as nothing short of a fear of true Polytheism- for centuries, Polytheism has been excoriated by Monotheism as ignorant and chaotic, and these lessons have been entrenched in our cultures, in our scholarly fields, and in our basic thinking.

Many of our "New Pagans" don't seem to have the depth or the courage to challenge the Monotheistic claim that Monotheism is just better or "makes more sense". It makes no sense to place all of the rich treasures of human spirituality, all of the unique spirits of places, and all of the unique cultural Gods of the past into an immense blender and make a horrid sludge out of it, all in the name of being able to tell disapproving Christians "well, we all worship the same God, just under different names and facets..." And they've come up with a liturgical calendar, complete with "colors" for the different seasons and precise days of worship, precisely like the Roman Catholic liturgical year.

The more one thinks on it, the more disgusting and shallow it becomes. It is a betrayal of the very essence of organic, traditional Paganism. I don't need Christian approval, and I don't have to be a sorta-monotheist to be taken seriously in a philosophical debate. I don't have to debate at all; I only need to know the closeness of the sacred powers, wherever I am. I need to bond with them and live in peace and harmony with them. That is what Pagans did. That is what "Pagans" worth the name still do.

I don't need a calendar created by Popes to tell me when "Beltaine" is. I can see the bluebells come to the trees, see the bloom of hawthorn, and know that my Summer-fire festival's time is here for me and for mine. They may bloom early one year; they may bloom later- but that's fine. It's the sacred power of the Earth itself telling me that it's time to celebrate. This custom, incidentally- of waiting to see the Hawthorn flowers- is not my invention. I wish I could be so rustic and deep sounding. It was an old custom from some parts of England and Ireland.

Pagans don't need "books on sabbats" to tell them how to worship. They need the sacred book that the ancients had: the Land itself. The Land at YOUR house will show you its own seasons. People need to pay attention to that, if they want to "celebrate the cycles of nature". People claim that the point of "celebrating the cycles of nature" is to gain "balance". I disagree. Balance comes from being part of a place, part of a family, part of a community, part of a vision of life that gives you peace. The seasons cycle around that, through that- but the balance, the "Frith" as many ancient Heathens called it, comes from belonging. You belong to a place, first, then it teaches you about its moods and seasons. By honoring those moods and seasons, you honor it and yourself, because you've become a part of it. The land and the people are one.

Even A Broken Clock Is Right Twice A Day: Let’s Go Deeper

I said that I'd say more than one good thing about the neo-Pagan calendar cycle, right? I did... and, well, I suppose I'd rather see people doing something unforgivably new-agey, and getting excited about the moon or the sun or racked-up Pagan holidays, than getting excited about Jesus and the twelve apostles. At least neo-Paganism is a move back to the sober sanity of nature, and away from the invented "triumphalist" linear story of "sin and salvation" with its absurd notion of "time beginning" and "time ending" at the hands of the ancient Hebrew God. I'd rather a modern story that excited people about nature's sacred powers, than an ancient one that excites people about physically crawling out of their graves one day to go to heaven and watch as most everyone else goes to hell forever. There's just no competition in my mind.

So, thanks to Gerald. But we can't stay right where Gerald or anyone else started people off. We have to use our hearts and reason and go deeper. Unless we all want to be content allowing "Paganism" to be perceived as a bunch of new-agers tossing together Greek and Roman Gods alongside caricatures of Norse and Celtic ones, (and a few Hindu divinities tossed in, alongside some Semitic ones, all slammed into a "one god and one goddess" duo-theism/bad monotheism) and ignoring local lands, powers, and folklore, and then worshiping on "Sabbats" that are blends of Germanic and Celtic holy days, all tied up with a big ribbon of radical liberalism and eco-feminism, we have to go deeper.

Trance-Work of the Three Forked Tongues

The Art requires command of extraordinary states of conscious awareness. The head-body complex- that natural state of conscious waking, locked in the head-eye-ear consciousness- is one of three complexes that stand like markers on a road that regresses to totality or wholeness. Three states of conscious awareness concern us here- the common consciousness of the head-body complex; the "feeling consciousness" of the soul which is half-awake in the average man, woman, or child, and the "heart consciousness" of the utter depth, which is dark and hidden in most.

From the perspective of one layer of consciousness, any of those deeper appear to be subtle, irrational, or simply absent or draped in darkness. Thus, from the perspective of the head-body consciousness, the feeling consciousness is wordless and strange, though active in an intuitive manner which grants the conscious person emotional textures, though without a seeming rational pattern or explanation. One merely "feels" a certain way, and sometimes a connection can seem apparent between forces operating in the apparently "objective" world and the feeling; at other times, the feelings simply arise.

From the perspective of the head-body complex, the heart's deep messages are absent. One may speak of "feeling with their heart" or "knowing in their heart", but this is poetic license to describe a decision or way of believing that is in line with no other evidence beyond a deeply held intuition. In this sense, the heart-consciousness may in fact be manifesting something to the feeling consciousness, which is struggling to do its best to transmit that message, and being interpreted in various ways by the most coarse, everyday consciousness, beset as it is with years of rationalizing and perilous, linear "educational" perspectives that have been forced upon it. The explanation that emerges for the entire chain of experience is normally a sad explanation, indeed, as is any explanation of the ultimate "meaning" of the entire experience.

A sublime trance and wisdom-gate exists for the opening in any man or woman who can regress from the head-body complex to the feeling region of the chest, and beyond that, into the boundless deep of the heart-field: a field whose very infinitesimal edge seems to touch the physical organ of the heart in the middle-body, and then extends far beyond the body, reaching out to touch all the invisible.

The process is as simple as it is powerful, and it draws on the tongue of the serpent, and can be increased threefold in strength if the rattle of his tail is used.

Fill a hollow gourd with some pebbles, and, if possible, the vertebrae of a serpent, dried well. Do not kill a serpent to attain them; you must find it deceased already. Seal the gourd and form from it a rattle. Any rattle constructed by you, from any simple material will do. This rattle is not needed for this work, but it increases its strength.

To begin, situate yourself calmly and in a lonely, quiet place. Quietly enter into the full use of your eyes, ears, and senses- the portals of the head-body consciousness. Let yourself fully enter into whatever you are hearing and seeing and feeling on your skin. Spit once and take a deep breath, and assay the serpent's hiss, by releasing the breath slowly and steadily through your teeth, making a faint whistling noise. As you do this, shake the rattle, if you are utilizing one, as though it were the warning-rattle of a serpent about to strike. Shake it sparingly, rapidly, suddenly, alarmingly- but never too much. As you are making this serpentine music, do not neglect the fact that your ears are hearing it, and immerse yourself in the sound fully. If your eyes remain open, immerse yourself in whatever you see. Be as present as you can be with the gifts of your head and body senses.

When the breath runs out, fall silent. If you feel that you have "entered into" your coarse experiences fully, then proceed. If not, undergo another cycle. There is nothing you need do except be fully present with what already effortlessly presents itself.

When you are ready to go one level deeper, bring your mind's focus to your chest, the place where you feel- the chest, and further down, the stomach. In both of these places you feel the swelling of pride, of joy, the gut-wrench of sorrow or hurt, the burn of panic, of humiliation. The chest primarily, and the stomach secondarily, are the houses of the feeling-sense consciousness.

You may give yourself leave now to withdraw from the eyes and ears and focus on the chest and stomach- and as you begin another long hiss, and perhaps rattle, now enter totally into whatever you happen to be feeling.

The final cycle of regression on the back of the sound of the hiss and rattle is from the feeling consciousness-realm to the heart-reality. Just as you gave yourself leave to regress a bit from the eyes and ears to the feeling region, now give a similar leave to sink below the place of feeling, to the purity and aerial-seeming freedom of the heart: an immense space that has no boundaries, somewhere indeterminately "deeper" in you and then beyond you. A hiss and the rattle may flow you deep into it, as well. Release yourself to it.

In that third space, greater than all, you have arrived at a subtle but clear space that is your own interweaving point with every other spiritual power. It is through this strange void that the messages from the boundless approach and begin to move through our three levels, to arrive in the coarse mind quite disfigured by the common man and woman's conscious and unconscious preconcieved notions. It is through this deathless void that spirits swim and dwell, and through this place that they may speak to us, and we to them- with the language of the same void, which is something more essential than feeling. It is, in essence, a wordless communication, a "suddenly knowing all that the spirit was intending to communicate", while "suddenly expressing all that you intended to express back, without words or thoughts, all at once."

This void is the very veil of Fate, the closest approximation that our humanity can create with our minds to the incomprehensible and non-corporeal reality of the grand mystery: a dazzling and sable midnight though without darkness, stretching without effort to all times and places and powers, silent and clear, free and vibrant, darksome and mind-withering, timeless and deathless. It would seem to be what so many people half-sense and call "God".

Our experience of the heart-space is our own personal window into the weird-world of the intangible, that well of potencies that has no bottom or boundaries. It is the source of dreams, though how we experience dreams is skewed and transformed from their original luminous nature, into objects, thoughts, and images that we impute reality and meaning to.

The most cunning will discover that they feel a certain different manner when resting in the third space; most will discover that resting in it for very long is difficult. As one drifts in and out of touch with it's subtle mystery, one may "bring themselves back down" by walking through the three regions quickly: re-immerse oneself in the eye and ear, then the feeling, and then back down and within to the silent, expansive space of heart. One must bend the will to it, but never too hard. To sink within, to the weird-space that borders both the heart and every other reality, is neither easy nor difficult.

When in contact with the heart-consciousness, with the weird-space, one may speak invocations with the mouth, and "feel" their impact rippling out into the unseen and filling up the world around them. Of course, one will hear with the ears, and feel with the chest and belly, and interpret the feelings with the common mind; but some third thing- some deeper aspect of the human man or woman- will know the difference, as a partial experience of the heart-field will echo into the person with a strange "contact" that cannot truly be explained well.

However, the cunning witch or sorcerer will know that they are "there": having an experience that is part place and part placeless; they will know “in their hearts” that they have made this regression and contact, and their feelings and even their outer senses may shift and verify this, in various ways.

One may also speak invocations in the manner of the "ghost language"- speak them with the mouth, but then "regress" them to the chest and belly, "saying" them only with feelings, before regressing them a final time, allowing them to be communicated into the great void-space without words or feelings; merely willing that the essence of the invocation be manifested all at once, fully, perfectly, in the great "totality". The feeling consciousness will report when this has occurred- One will feel, in a wordless way, that the invocatory message has "filled up the seen and the unseen"- the message itself becoming as large as the universe, its essence becoming one with all things. The most powerful invocations are done in this manner.

Apotrapaic Charms

Witch bottle sketch by Rima

A fine selection of apotrapaic charms never hurt anyone- and indeed, these have saved and spared many from much harm. Be cunning and well in all you do.

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Rowan and Oak Crosses

Either of these two woods are excellent apotrapaic powers. Forming their well-harvested branches into equal-armed crosses, bound by red thread, makes a time-honored charm against the encroachment of evil forces into a home in which they are hung. A ritual area can be protected with them, as well. I find that attaching bells to them adds a further element of protection.

"Well-harvested" in the context that I have used it means "gathered with honor done to the tree-weird at the proper time and with proper offerings, and taken in such a manner as to disallow the twig or branch to touch the ground." If you are aware of which current of power the tree-weird participates in, you will already know what day is needed to approach it for gathering some of its parts. The tying is the key- with the red thread dipped in a good boiling brew of oak shavings and leaves and a single solar herb- like cedar. It is to "HIM" that the Rowan or Oak crosses are devoted- the great and awe-full father-weird of the sky and ruler among spirits and weirds. A small cross like this can be made for personal wearing around the neck.

OAK BEAMS FOR A TIMBER WALL
OVER WHICH EVIL CANNOT CALL
OR SLINK OR LEAP OR FLY OR FALL
HARD WOOD AND WICKED BANE
HE WILL NOT BREAK NOR BLEED,
NOR GIVE NOR WANE,
AND HOLD THIS HOME HIS HOLY FANE
AND RED THREAD BINDS HIM TWO BY TWO
A CROSS OF THE SKY, GOODNESS TRUE
IN THE NAME OF HIM, UNSPEAKABLE.
NO WICKEDNESS SHALL ENDURE OR BIND
IN THE PRESENCE OF THIS FOURFOLD SIGN.


Mandrake

By far the most complicated and powerful of all anti-evil charms, particularly for the home. A complete treatment of the mystical botany and science of the Mandrake is found in my work "The Horn of Evenwood".


Fire Seed Water

Take a kettle of spring water, and into it add a few drops of water from a sacred spring. Failing this, natural, running water from a river or stream will suffice. Kindle a fire in the name of the great howling and raging spirit of the wilderness, overlooking the fire with an antlered skull or the horned skull of a cow or some large bovine. The fire has to be "red"- a bloody portion of meat has to be burned into it as an offering to the great raging and antlered spirit that protects wild places. Failing that, a bit of your own blood soaked into a ball of flour and water will have to do.

Make the fire with oak and holly wood, and make it rage. Ask the wild king, as the face of his skull glows golden in the fire light, to manifest the power of his fear and terror in the flames- so that any evil spirit or power would flee from it, or from anything touched by it. When the fire dies down, select three good sized coals, still glowing hot, and drop them one at a time into the kettle of water. The water, after this, is hallowed and powerful for protection, and for averting evil powers. Sprinkle it on yourself and around your home or places of ritual work.

FEAR LIVES FOR THE FOES OF THE WOOD
A NIGHTMARE FORM OF HOOF AND HOOD
AND WRAITH-ARROWS DEADLY.
HE IS THE WAILER, LOUDER THAN WIND
THE ROARER, TERROR TO SEND
TO THE ENEMIES OF THE LAND.
BLOOD-SOAKED LOCKS AND BOW OF BONE
A FLESHY CLOAK WITH TENDONS SEWN
AND HOUNDS OF SAVAGE RED,
BRING YOUR DARK GRACES ON THE HEAD
OF THIS GROWING FIRE WEIRD
AND IN THE SHIMMER, IN THE GLARE
FIX WITHIN YOUR HORRID STARE
WHICH WICKED POWERS CANNOT STAND:
AND ALL THAT ARE BURNED BY THIS FIRE
LET YOUR POWER ON THEM RETIRE
AND REMAIN FOREVER.


Sage and Sweetgrass

The ancient peoples of the Americas have used these two herbs since time immemorial for their specific powers- the smoke of burned sage destroys the presence of evil, either spirits or enchantments, and purifies an area. Sweetgrass burned after it attracts the good Sacred Powers that mean well to humankind. No ritual is necessary, in the strict sense of the word, but one must be polite and thankful to the weirds of these two herbs, or you can be certain they won't help as much as they could.


Salt

Spreading lines of salt across the bottoms of windowpanes and thresholds is a time-honored method of protecting the house from the passage of evil entities; it still works today as much as it ever did, so long as the salt is enchanted sufficiently with the will of a person to cleanse it of spiritual pollutants, and to mark it with a will to protect.

CREATURE OF STINGING EARTH, SALT SO PURE
THROUGH AGES IN EARTH YOU HAVE ENDURED
TO COME INTO THE LIGHT OF DAY.
LIFE AND GOD, CLEAN AND WHITE
OF SEA AND CAVERN DEEP ALIKE
BE FREE OF WHAT DAIMONS RESTRAIN YOU
IN THE NAMES OF INDARA AND THRICE-GREAT TAS
AND FREE FROM ANY POWER THAT MAY CONSTRAIN YOU
FROM YOUR GREATEST MIGHT.
AND JOIN THAT MIGHTY WILL NOW TO ME:
BE A FAITHFUL WARD AGAINST ILL WEIRDS
AGAINST HARMFUL WIGHTS OR FOE ALIKE
WHETHER FROM SEA OR LAKE OR SKY OR VALLEY
OR FOREST OR FIELD OR RIVER OR STREAM
IN THE NAMES OF EDRIC AND GODDA.


Flour and Bread

Bread pulled into many small pieces is a common protecting agent in the Faery tradition of Ireland and Britain- if you make a circle of flour, and place the small pieces of bread all over in the circle, it is bound with the same protecting power as a circle of salt.


Witch Bottle

A classic which never gets old- the Witch Bottle is one of the ultimate shielding charms, particularly against hostile spells hurled by sorcerously-inclined opponents, but also against the powers of hostile weirds. The idea of the witch bottle is to create a sorcerous doppleganger of yourself, such that magical forces seek it out instead of you. What it finds is a sharp, deadly welcome- a bottle full of broken glass, nails, needles, and thorns.

A glass jar or bottle of some kind must be found, and in it placed many broken shards of glass, rusty nails, pins and needles, and thorns- and then, on top of them, enough of your blood, spittle, and urine to finish filling the bottle up. It must be sealed with wax over the cork or lid. The bottle must be sorcerously "named" after you in a rite- and buried somewhere secret. So long as it stays buried and full of the liquid, you will have splendid protection from hostile weird-powers.

BOTTLE OF BITTER BRINE, LIFE OF MINE
NOW RESONATE WITH ME, FOR ALL EYES TO SEE
FOR HOSTILE EYES MAY SEEK THEE.
TAKE THEM TO YOURSELF, AND BE THOU ME
AND FROM WITHIN YOU GIVE THEM THEIR REWARD:
THRICE PIERCED BY DARKLING NAIL
THRICE CUT BY JAGGED GLASS
BUTCHERED BY HARSHNESS WITHOUT FAIL
PIERCED BY NEEDLES, A BITING FLAIL
AND REDUCED TO NOTHINGNESS.
IF SOME POWER CAUGHT BY YOU
SHOULD SURVIVE YOUR SAVAGE, BITTER BREW
LET IT FLY BACK HOME TO ITS MASTER'S HAND
AND INFLICT ON HIM WHAT THEY HAD PLANNED
WHEN THEY SOUGHT ME OUT AT FIRST.

Not Awake, Not Asleep: Opening the Faery Portal Trance

NOT AWAKE, NOT ASLEEP
Opening the Faery Portal Trance

A discussion regarding extraordinary states of awareness within the stream of traditional witchcraft and postmodern or revivalist sorcery

By Robin Artisson
Copyright © 2009

* * *

PART I: The Bridge Between Night and Day

"Aloneness haunts. The crack of the sky.
A primordial thing
Where blurred vision first cleared its way
Into an ancient eye.
The first vacant look, the first stirring
Mingling night and day."

-Peter Makem


Concerning the Necessity of Trance, and its Dangers

Since my learning, and since the time of my formal writing, I have always emphasized the need for modern traditional witches and sorcerers working within the streams of European mystical "craft" (pre and post-Christian) to master the trance state.

I have held to my position that no authentic work can be claimed without mastery of altered states of consciousness, those states to which a "trance" is the bridge. I have claimed this for one very important reason: while I believe that chants, charms, conjuries, and incantations have their own force and effectiveness when said even outside of a trance, by one who emanates the proper personal magnetism and power, the internal, subtle effect of these things- their great ambiance and hidden aspects- are missed without the trance.

Why is it so important to experience the inner side of things? Because we cannot gauge the true efficacy of our work without the "other side" of the experience, but more importantly, we cannot gain the spiritual transformation that any work of Art promises without it. The cunning witch or sorcerer gains something very tangible from experiencing the hidden flashes and waves of force that accompany a true work of art- they gain something akin to faith in their art. They grow in true certainty of their craft, and this is worth the reading of a thousand grimoires from ages past.

But trance- the passageway to another state of mind and being- is not without dangers, as I have long endeavored to warn my reading audience. It is one matter to point out how trance opens us to the massive whirls and eddies of the unseen world, and all of its unpredictability; it is something else to point out something more immediate: it gives men and women access to the antechambers of the unconscious, places where the half-forgotten and repressed materials of the mind reside, pulsing potently under their own perceptual cobwebs and dust-piles.

In my work with my clients, I often encounter those who balk at the idea of facing what things have become stored unconsciously deep within themselves- a dark shirking of responsibility, indeed, for what we conceal inside ourselves, from ourselves, almost always holds the keys to our own destruction- and, for those bold enough, our salvation. A mind is truly a terrible thing to waste, and wasted it is when it becomes dominated by unconscious material and powers which, like a primordial sludge, begins to give birth to sentient things, demons and tormentors that cobweb the insides of dreams and the underside of waking with their own tyrannical limitations.

Eventually they burst forth- sending their hosts to a madhouse, or to a grave. If you keep a "full house" as it were, and refuse to deal with it and its inhabitants as the essential man or woman should, and if you should be lucky enough to make it to a natural death uninspired by your own personal hidden unseelie court deep within, then you have escaped little: death will be the time of their ascension, and you can look forward to your journey into the Great Incomprehensible being accompanied by terrors you'll have spent a lifetime trying to deny or ignore.

Such a journey, in which rose-petals will become rose-thorns, might be thought of as its own sort of hell, as there will be no one there to spare you by waking you to physical sense again- the body will lie inert in its lasting sleep, and there will be no escape for the wandering mindstream. I can imagine, in my own disturbed thinking, those poor and tormented souls taking their desperate shelter in dark and deep places, trapped for awfulness-knows how long as the phantoms summoned scritching and tittering by more than one hero or sorcerer from history and legend. Those who can only whisper long to shout.

This would be an ignominious end for those who would style themselves either as "human" in the best sense of the word, or "wise" or "cunning"- so if you consider yourself to be a member of the spirit-rade of our Master or the Lady, or of Dame Dark and her Devil, don't lead yourself to such an experience. Shock the deep mind with the glare of the eye of wisdom and awaken; Learn to use the trance to gain access to what is ever-present, and forever intimate, but often unseen. This goes for our own hidden kingdoms within, as well as the omnipresent force of the unseen world.

Like with so many other things, the bridge that leads to danger also leads to salvation; the hand that blesses can also curse. What comes to pass is determined by the heart that walks the path, and the heart that rules the hand.

Concerning the Word "Trance"

The Random House Dictionary clears up any ambiguity regarding the word "trance". Here are given its five definitions, and its origins, according to that work:

TRANCE

1. a half-conscious state, seemingly between sleeping and waking, in which ability to function voluntarily may be suspended.

2. a dazed or bewildered condition.

3. a state of complete mental absorption or deep musing.

4. an unconscious, cataleptic, or hypnotic condition.

5. Spiritualism. a temporary state in which a medium, with suspension of personal consciousness, is controlled by an intelligence from without and used as a means of communication, as from the dead.

Origin: 1300–50; ME traunce, state of extreme dread, swoon, dazed state; MF transe, lit., passage (from life to death), deriv. of transir, to go across, pass over; Latin trānsīre, equiv. to trāns- trans- + īre, to go.


This fine definition, I think, covers it all nicely. The first definition is the focus of the present treatise; I shall make little mention the others, though much could be said for them. They are another story, for another night. The first usage says "a half-conscious state"- and while this is fine enough, it is clumsy, for language loses the power to grasp the full reality of the trance. It is, however, "between sleeping and waking"- a finer turn of phrase the author of the definition could not have used.

What does it mean to be neither awake nor asleep? Few can say, for in that marvelous and hidden place, language breaks apart. But this is a state that all people- and all beings that must sleep- venture through every time they lie down to rest. For a subtle moment, passing all too quickly for most- a "moment" called by me the "thirteenth hour"- all minds travel down from waking, to sleep, crossing the region of the between, the twilight region of the trance. To learn and halt the downward sinking, and remain suspended in that great space, which opens itself upon every other space in reality, is the essence of the trance-art.

The origins of the word "trance" are interesting- it begins with the “traunce” being good for a swoon of dread, for those who see what lies on the other side! But the trance, as it points out, is a "passage"- as from life to death- or a "passing over"- how perfect! Trance is a passage, from one state to another, whether it be from the day of waking to the night of sleep, or from life to death. We know this place- all of us know it. Few have taken the time to consider it as an alternative to simply being awake or asleep.

Trance is a bridge between two states, and to "build that bridge" with conscious attention and will is the key and the goal. I shall give the pass-keys to such a feat; in so doing, I become a Pontifex for those who take my advice- a "bridge builder". Such is my vocation and duty to the souls of the Hollow Hill Fellowship, my friends all over the world, and those of the Hethite strain of Craft- that covenant of souls to whom I owe so much.

Let your bridge be built; become the builder. Your hidden world awaits, on your own far shore- but the hidden dimension of all worlds also awaits, if you can negotiate with your own internal guardians for entry. Those who know me well will pardon the humor, but there is a real troll under most bridges, and it will take more than simply ignoring this troll to gain your own passage to authenticity as a person, and as a sorcerer or witch. It will take bravery, will, and cunning.


PART II: The New Sorcery of Modernity

"Modern man is ancient as the hills.
Neither science nor philosophy
Can temper his extremity.
He returns, he always returns,
The distant prodigal,
The stranger at the door.
Death welcomes him.
Death loves him."

-Peter Makem


The Lost World and the Modern World

I have always looked to the primal wisdom of the peoples of the "first world"- those native peoples who, even into our recent centuries, have maintained powerful strains of living sorcery. I have devoured (in the manner of a good white male spiritual imperialist) many of the texts recounting their wisdom, their cultures, and their native beliefs. I always choose to focus upon the words of their shamans, sorcerers, and specialists at healing and altered states, and upon their mythologies, for without understanding their mythologies, one cannot grasp the secrets to their trance-work.

The secrets are all there- primal peoples do not "hide" things as we Westerners assume; we project our own paranoia and silly obsession with occult secrets onto them. If it is a secret these peoples have, it is the simplest and best secret of all: if one must "hide" something, the most sublime things are best hidden in plain sight. The simplicity with which native informants speak hides a great complexity of thinking and spiritual experience. It is we Westerners, again, which shun simplicity and seek over-complexity, to the point that we invent nonsensical twists of word and argument, forever missing what stands naked and obvious.

I shall say it now, as I have said before, many times: true magical treasures- the real treasures- all contain within their magic a unique failsafe: they cannot be found if they are looked for. When you stop looking, you gain them instantly, for real magic is not apart from "everyday" things. The trance is a real magical treasure that shuns the seeking eye; true Wisdom is another. If you must "look" outside of yourself for these things, they will never be found, for you convince yourself in the looking that you don't have them, and thus, so long as you maintain this stance, you never will.

One cannot "out think" the real magic of the world- you cannot choose to "stop looking" or pretend not to look, for this is another form of looking, and the oldest powers cannot be so fooled. The only fools so created are those who try such lame things. We may all be fools from time to time, but a real fool is only someone who cannot recognize other fools. Recognize your own folly, and you take a step towards power. Honesty and self-awareness become the sorcerer's real tools.

With Ease For the Children of the Forest

While reading the excellent ethnographic works of James Walker, (the only white man to ever be given the title "Wicasa Wakan" or "Holy Man" by the Lakota Sioux), I was struck by the power of the words given to him by his informants, all of them holy men of the Lakota Sioux, and most of them shamans (or Wicasa Wakans) who were privy to the inner workings of Lakota religion. They speak of spirits and the supernatural world often, in a way that matches well what we know of many other first-nation peoples.

I've long known that the "secret" to trance lied in simple features of worldview- why can the "white man" not hear the words of the trees in a forest? One famous native American character from cinema insisted that "white man had forgotten how to listen". To this, after all my years of research, I must say- it may be true that white people have forgotten how to listen, but the forgetting happened a long time before now. Most white people now have never known- and not just white people, but people from all over the modern world.

Why have we never known? Because modernism and modern worldviews are power-stories: they are spells, workings of intense force, and all of them are laced with assumptions about reality that become entrenched in the minds of young people at a very early age. Our ears are battered from day one by the sounds of machines and cars and the horrid sound of television commercials and the mainstream mind-garbage television shows that the majority of people watch; we hear the terrible noises of industry and smell the awful stench of modernity, every day of our lives. Our counterparts in the deep Amazon and in the few other "virgin" places of the world hear what? The songs of birds, the sound of wind, the sound of crackling fires and human voices. They hear the cries of animals and the crash of falling trees or waves on the ocean.

Why do I make such an issue of this? Because I know that this parade of sounds not only shapes the neurological architecture of the brain in certain ways, but it transforms the mindstream in ways that give a wholly different perspective on the world, whether we would have it or not. Another two decades of Western "education" will finish the job that the cantankerous noise of our "civilization" has begun- we will send our children forth into the world looking for numbers, formulae, theories, and money-making ingenuity, and caring little for the subtle and beautiful powers that flow around us like rivers. We will care even less for the darker powers that take root in us every day and grow in the fertile press of our ignorance of spiritual matters.

When a few of the children of such a civilization finally feel and see the spiritual wasteland that they inhabit, they may long and ache for another way of seeing, another way of being. They may sense the Otherworld, the promise of magic or the unseen, but will be constantly frustrated at finding it. The ranges of awareness and consciousness they need are not gone, for they cannot be destroyed, but too much contrary force and assumption has been planted in them to ever hope to gain the trance with the ease of the people in the first nations or the primal world.

Old Puck's Laughter

It's frustrating to consider, but old Puck was right to laugh at the people of the Old World, when they sold their souls away to the new sorcerers who brought them the new spells of modernity. There is much to be recommended in a world of aspirin and air-conditioning, a world where babies and their mothers don't die nearly as much in childbirth and where tumors can be cut out of ailing people, but there is a downside to our brilliant avoidance of death: we get to die in other ways, in ways far more ominous than any rotting body.

The death of loneliness is our real death: people today have many miraculous devices to put between them and actually looking into the eyes of other people, and hearing their words. A web of light connects us all, and yet, my clientele overflows with people in the chasms of depression regarding their sense of being cut off from others, not being able to communicate with others, and feeling as though no one understands their most essential dreams, wants, needs, and desires. We've sold the cow of life, the warmth of breath, for synthetic milk and fake leather.

Those who have no belief in a life beyond this one cling with terror to this life, even while despising it at times; they eagerly justify every miraculous invention of the modern day, regardless of its negative impact on humanity and this world. If there were a such thing as an "untrance"- a reversal of trance, a reversal of the passage between two states, and a solidification into a state of constant focus on the material and the passionless, stale fear of existing, these modernists can be said to have mastered it. Their sorcery is the sorcery of despair and shallowness, and (as we have seen) it is a potent sorcery, indeed, for now it, more than any other sorcery, commands the fate of the world. Or so it would appear.

I am not suggesting that you take a club to your "modern devices", nor that you shun sensible medical treatments; technological artifice is a venerable and useful part of human beings, though it appears that our technological advancements have outstripped our humanity, and grown beyond whatever fund of wisdom we once commanded. This imbalance inhibits us when we attempt to approach the true "Old Ways" across the bridge of trance. It walls us off from the preternatural world, from the direct experience of the sacred, unfiltered by presumption and expectation.

This "barrier of hateful modernity" can be overcome, but not without enormous effort. I am not certain that it can truly be overcome by Westerners who are not born with a special predisposition towards preternaturalism and mystical endeavor. Some sorcerous blood runs in us yet! But the sleeping serpent of that magic doesn't sleep in quiet: it sleeps in noise, and is (in a reversal) stirred to wakefulness by silence- by a return to the primal sounds that once filled our ears, before our modern walls of noise came to disturb us into slumber.

Thus, a good preparation for the quest of the trance is to remove oneself to a place where only natural sounds- sounds not produced by machinery- can be heard, and staying in that place for as long as one can. The "silence of nature" is actually quite full of noise- it includes birdsong and wind; it includes creaking trees and the like. Anyone who has ever taken a lengthy, lonely vigil away from cities and crowds of people, and heard nothing but their own voice for many days or weeks, alongside the sounds of nature, knows that after a while, when a strange longing and loneliness for the familiar passes, a new "space of mind" opens up- and a peace settles with it.

It is this silence that is the great teacher of shamans worldwide, as recorded by Michael Harner from his informants, and it- nature's true voice- is the teacher of all the cunning, if they know how to hear the silence.


PART III: Not Awake, Not Asleep: An Outline of Praxis

"Consciousness has broken open
The ethereal veins
Where caribou trek north to give birth,
Where salmon glide the Bann,
Where starlings wheel and turn in the rains
To their blind voyage south.

Consciousness has taken rafter
And roof down, and the wall
Laid flat and all opened to the sky.
Sleep along might restore
Paths and patterns, routes invisible
To the conscious eye."

-Peter Makem


The Blade-Edge Bridge in Twilight

Trance is the pass-way, the bridge or portal to an unseen world. This trance, the veritable "faery portal" of legend, is a work of consciousness that begins in a prone position, in a secret place, but, after it is mastered, begins to "travel" with the master or mistress, and live with them and in them in everyday "waking life". It is a mastery of the "third estate", the third way of being, between sleeping and waking, in the perpetual twilight of the mind, which is a distant glimmer of the finest point of all people, the deathless spirit.

There are two halves of this work of trance, two realities that must be considered. The first layers of the process will take a man or woman into a space wherein the sights and sounds of their own minds will be broadcast in a state that is neither fully conscious nor fully unconscious. The first powers, sights, sounds, and emotions to appear begin in the "recent" memory and begin to proceed apace to the deeper reaches of memory, and finally to the unconscious.

This great wall of experience must be passed- it is an enormous hedge or tablet of personal force or "personal vibration" that has to be negotiated. Those who are daily living in stressful situations, those who sleep not enough, or who experience prolonged frustrations or difficulties will find this part of the work- the first bridge- very difficult. Any untamed mind will be like a leaping stallion, so very hard to handle or control, and indeed, "control" reveals itself for the illusion it is. The mind at the opening stages of the work is more like a slippery eel or fish, forever struggling out of grasp and back into the deep rush and confusion of murky water.

This work must be performed in as private and quiet a setting as possible, at least initially. The face should be washed with water from a sacred well or spring, and the bridge-builder should lie comfortably flat on their back, but never so comfortably that one would regularly sleep in such a position or upon such a place.

This work cannot be done if the mind and body are tired, so do not attempt it; the best results may occur earlier in the day, after one has awoken well refreshed. A dark cloth should be (at the beginning stages) wrapped about the eyes. When lying prone, washed and blindfolded, take four deep breaths, and then begin the simplest of all chants, within the mind, and, if one desires, at a low whisper:

"NOT AWAKE, NOT ASLEEP"

Relax and let yourself begin to withdraw your mind or awareness from its contact with the senses of the body; feel as though you are sinking down to sleep- let the "sink" begin, but go slowly. The act of willing oneself to "withdraw from contact with the senses" is a difficult task- you must will your awareness to turn away from the inputs of the sense-portals, but you must know that, unless you lose consciousness fully, such a task is truly impossible. Thus, withdrawing from the senses means willing the inner awareness to turn away from the senses, to scorn their inputs, but always accepting that inputs will still remain, will still be with you.

You will discover that scorning the sense-portals yields something interesting- it does, if done correctly, instantly cause a person to turn the arrow of awareness inward somehow, building an "inward focus". It is a strange but mystically sensible state of "two-beingness"- to turn away from the senses, yet still be experiencing sensations, sights, and sounds.

It must be tried to be understood. At any rate, do not try too hard; withdraw from sense input without trying to ignore it too hard, and just relax. Sink a little, and truly let yourself realize and believe- truly believe- that you are no longer "awake"- and indeed, by lying still in the quiet and dark and relaxing, and sinking down a bit, turning one's inner attention away from sounds and sensations, one truly is no longer "purely awake". But one is also not purely asleep yet, either; the very fact that the droning words, softly in the mind "Not Awake, Not Asleep" are whispering through you is evidence- you are consciously willing to keep this chant going.

Now, let the other voices chant it with you. As the sound of the whispering continues to permeate your consciousness on its slow descent, imagine what it would sound like if dozens of other men and women were whispering the key words, "Not Awake, Not Asleep". Let yourself drift with them.

Let yourself become precisely what the words are describing- neither asleep, nor awake. It is easy to realize that you are no longer purely awake; it is exciting to realize that you aren't purely awake anymore, yet, you are still conscious of your chant and thus not asleep in oblivion.

A Fabulous and Formless Darkness

When you penetrate "one level down"- feel a tangible shift towards relaxation and the inviting embrace of a nap or sleep, you will know that you have made great progress. But here, caution and wits must reign- you cannot ever allow yourself to become comfortable with "slipping down". You cannot go all the way to the country of sleep and dreams. You cannot fall asleep, for if you do, you have missed the trance and the working ends in failure. When you feel a "warm, comfortable shift", be alarmed and rouse your mind to re-focus on the words of the key chant. Keep repeating them.

In the chant, is a safety net; you will discover that soon, as you keep yourself on the "middle" of the road, the road between the peaks of waking and the chasms of sleep, and as you enter into the "not awake or asleep" state, songs, conversations, memories, words, sounds, and every other distraction begins to fly through your head. They may begin to come in large numbers, and the chant may temporarily go out of your head, to be replaced by such "mind noise"- but if you are willful enough, the chant will return. You will recall it and begin chanting it again, thus breaking up the thick, tired, distracting cloud of thoughts and memories.

This is the first layer, the first barrier thorns: and if you can feel it like a thick cloud, a confusion and a sleep, a fabulous and formless darkness that tries to rob your work from you, you are making progress. Here and now, you must keep a cool focus on the key-chant, and on creating the state (in that strange, effortless effort sort of way) which truly is neither awake nor asleep- trust in the words and your mind! Your mind will respond to the words; it will become "not awake, not asleep", so long as you focus yourself thus.

You are taking the reigns of the inner horses of the mind and holding them, with will and repeated, whispered inner command, between the region of wakefulness and oblivion. You are holding the middle course, and staying focused on your goal by saying the four key words over and over again. The untamed aspects of the mind will rush out to contest your way- but your will must be stronger. Over-exerting the will to defeat the mind will only cause the distractions to become stronger and eject you from the work. Will must be used calmly and coolly, without strain.

I find that this state comes quickly, if I go into it properly prepared and with the needed energy. This trance state is subtle; You know that you are in it, but it may take days or weeks to really integrate your "knowing" such that you become clearly conscious of your condition- though this "clear consciousness" is not the consciousness of pure wakefulness. No, it has become something else entirely. And in this state, any feat of mind is possible, any motion in the unseen world- one becomes truly unfettered in this state.

Because you are not awake fully, you are not bound by physics and the limits of perception. Because you are not asleep fully, you are not bound to mindlessness and unconsciousness. Desire and imagination become your new wings with which to fly, your new guides, the new powers that will light the way on to wherever you are intending to go. Where your desire can reach, you can reach, and without much time or effort, at all. What imagination can illuminate, you can experience.

When you have mastered this trance to the point that your mind is no longer a murky bog of watery thoughts and dreams and half-forgotten images, you are ready for the next step, which is into another world, beyond space and time. But the "harrowing of the personal hell" is not easy; a lifetime of dark subject matter, sensation, and experience has filled the mind and gives it an inertia that is hard to overcome.

But a few sessions a week, perhaps one short session a day, of trying to edge down into the "between state" and remaining clearly conscious there, while dispassionately observing the coming and going of hidden, unconscious and half-conscious material, has the marvelous impact of cleansing the mind and making safe one's own personal darkness. It has a way of preparing the ancient inner eyes to open more often and with greater power. Success is, of course, not guaranteed, but those who are shod by Fate for the Road of Initiation will succeed.

Road Maps to Faery

When the portal is ready, you will know it. I suggest eighteen months of work, at minimum, before you are ready for a road map that will take you beyond the immediate clarity of trance and into transpersonal regions beyond the typical understanding of “mind”- though nothing is beyond the fullness of what we truly are. When you are ready, you will find that the folk tradition provides the needed maps- the ancient works hid nothing from anyone. It is only we who assume that the truest and best secrets are hiding.

Begin with the map given below: it is only one map from a very old tradition, but there are many more to be found. May the old powers make safe your darkness.


I.

ENCIRCLED WHITE AND WITH THE LAMP-LIGHT OF SPIRIT
I SPEAK WORDS OF ART THAT EMBODY MY WILL:
MY WILL TO THE STARS AND SHADOW-DRAPED SKY,
TO THE FIELD AND WOOD, AND STARING MOON:

OPEN THE DOORWAY BELOW, AND GIVE ME ENTER
AND SAFE RETURN AGAIN.
WITH HAZEL-STAFF AND HEARTH STONE,
ONE TO GO FORTH AND ONE TO COME HOME,
I STRIDE FORTH INTO THE OTHERNESS.


II.

SEW THE THREAD, MAKE THE STITCH
UPON IT PLACE PITCH AND KNOCK WITHIN YOUR NAILS!
ACCUSER SHADOW, WALK THE WAY WITH ME
THOUGH I SHALL GO MY WAY JOYFULLY;
FATE'S GREAT SPINDLE I TRUST TO POINT ME RIGHT
IN SORROWFUL DAY OR PERILOUS NIGHT.
AND WITH CUNNING,
THE DARKEST NIGHT IS AS DAY DAWNING.


III.

THE VILLAGES OF THE WASTE ARE SMALL:
THEIR TRADESMEN SMILE, THEIR WIVES CARRY WATER,
THEIR PEOPLE GO ON UNCOVERED FEET.
I WHO WEAVE AND STITCH,
AND YOU WHO MAKE THE ARMOR OF THE HEEL,
TO THE FOREST WE GO, WHICH SUN CANNOT FILL,
BEYOND WHICH LIES THE GLEAMING CITY OF A KING.


IV.

HERE THE FOREST OF SHADE BEGINS
PENETRATED BY TWO ROADS, A FORK AND FEARFUL DOUBT
THE HIGH ROAD DEMANDS SEVEN DAYS,
THE LOW ROAD ONLY TWO
WHICH SHALL BE WHICH? WHAT SHALL WE DO?
WE HAVE NO GUIDANCE SAVE TRUST IN DAME FATE
ACCUSER SHADE, CARRY SEVEN DAYS' BREAD
AND I SHALL CARRY ONLY TWO
INTO THE FOREST WE GO.


V.

THE TORMENT OF HUNGER STALKS ME
AND THE ACCUSER SHADE MOCKS ME
OFFERING TO PRESERVE ME ONLY TO BLIND ME
SUCH A FATE TO ALL WHO GIVE SOUL AWAY TO DESPAIR!
BUT THE FOREST HAS ENDED, GIVEN WAY TO EMERALD FIELDS
AND IN THE DISTANCE, A HUNDRED-TOWERED CITY.
BETWEEN THE FOREST AND THE CITY, A GALLOWS POLE
AND ON THE GIBBET THE CORPSES OF TWO HANGED MEN
WHO WHISPER THE SECRETS OF THE DEAD WHEN THE MOON IS HIGH.
THERE WITH THEM, ON THEIR TANGLED HEADS, PERCH TWO CROWS
WHO WATCH ALL PASS WITH THE BALEFUL GLARE OF FATE.
THERE IS A JUSTICE WHICH SEES ALL,
AND WAITS TO STRIKE ON BLACK WINGS.


VI.

FOAL OF BROWN AND WHITE, RUN STRONG AND FREE
MY HAND IS THE HAND THAT RELEASES THEE:
MOTHER DUCK, QUEEN OF PONDS AND LAKES
YOUR TWELVE YOUNG I WILL NEVER TAKE.
QUEEN BEE, YOUR HIVE WILL DRIP SWEET AND GOLD
WITH THE HONEY THAT WOULD RESTORE ME
BUT I PASS IT BY LEST IT OFFEND THEE!
BOG-KING, MARSH-KING, COUSIN LONG-LEG AND SACRED
I SPARE YOUR NECK, MASTER OF THE SKY
NONE SHALL SLAY YOU AND ESCAPE THE BLIGHT OF FATE.
FOR MY REGARD, REMEMBER ME, AND LEND YOUR POWERS FAIRLY.


VII.

A KING'S COMMAND SENDS ME FORTH
MY LASTING DEATH SHOULD I FAIL:
MOTHER DUCK AND TWELVE FAITHFUL KIN,
FROM THE BOTTOM OF FAERY'S WATER RAISE THE CROWN
THAT I REQUIRE, ANCIENT AND LOST.
QUEEN BEE, MAKE THE ENTIRE WORLD FROM WAX
MISS NOT A MOTE OR A MARK.
HORSE OF BROWN AND WHITE, GALLOP ROUND THRICE
AND WITH YOUR HOOVES STRIKE,
MAKE THE WATER BENEATH THE EARTH RISE TO THE SKY
A FOUNTAIN THAT WILL EVEN SOOTHE THE DEAD.
COUSIN LONG-LEGS, SACRED WHITE WING,
TAKE FROM THE DEEP POND A PRINCELY CHILD,
AND THROUGH THE SKY DELIVER HIM
TO THE DAUGHTER OF THE KING.


VIII.

HORSE AND DUCK, BEE AND STORK,
FOREST AND GIBBET AND CITY GATE,
DARK TREES AND ROADS THAT FORK,
ACCUSER SHADE AND KINGLY COURT,
I AM THE ONE WHO WEAVES AND CHARMS
WHO CRAFTS AND JOURNEYS BETWEEN THE ARMS OF DAY AND NIGHT.
CROWS OF THE DEAD, SEE ME PASS,
BLIGHTS AND WEIRDS OF HUNGER AND PAIN,
PRINCESS OF THE SIDHE, AWAITING YOUR MATE,
ALL THE POWERS OF FORCE AND OF FATE,
PRESERVE ME NOW; THE CHILD COMES.


XI.

ACCUSER FLEE, CAST AWAY ARE THEE,
DOWN BY THE GIBBET YOU WILL FALL:
THE CROWS WILL TAKE YOUR EYES, AND THE FOREST SWALLOW YOU.
NEVER AGAIN WILL THEY HEAR OF YOU,
AND I WILL WEAR THE CROWN.

Sundown Door: Opening The Way to the Sky

The Path to the Star-Throne of the Lady

Old Man Who Lives In The Stones: I sense the longing in your soul and the triumph of the evil powers. Chaos and madness reign where once the deer was hunted and the fire of people was joy for all. Listen, way-watcher and way-maker and I will show you the old magic that summons the vision you need. To see is not enough, but it may be all that you are to have. Suffering men and women, I and those others like me have become ageless spirits, like unto those which we sought aid from when we lived in the boundaries of flesh. I see so far and so much, I know the good and the evil. I see so many men and women lost, and terrible powers running free. I know that nothing ever ends and things will be well, but great is the need for men to embrace their task. Men alone complete what begins unseen. The great unseen alone completes men.

Arrow-maker: You have all that you need, save one thing: you do not know what to tell the Lady when you meet Her, the words that say what so many have forgotten, and without which, no peace or health is possible. The Lady is the earth, source of every life and goodness, source of every food and healing herb, life's faithful sustainer. You must recognize Her for this. That is all. Her true worship is recognition.

Old Man Who Lives In The Stones: Here is how the magic is made. The earth powers and the growing powers will show you the place. The sun rises and sets in a straight line over the place; at its middle point are two trees standing near one another- they form a passage-way. The sun passes between them and goes below far beyond them; you can see its red death from between them.

Take a staff of ash or oak and etch upon it a horse and a rider, and set it up far to the east of the two trees, but always between them. Pour from it a line of water, running between the trees, the length of twenty men- and where it ends, build a fire of wood from the land all around. Kindle the fire as the sun is sinking and walk back to the horseman's pole. Pour honey, milk, and blood into the ground in a pit dug before the pole. Say the words:

Wisdom spirit, gallop and trot to me!
Into my hand place the key.
Life spirit, give your offerings,
And we will rightfully repay.
Fate spirit, bind unending as you will,
But spare me wisdom.

Walk backwards on the water-trail for the space of five men, never taking your eyes off the horseman's pole, and look beyond, to the dark eastern horizon. See there a man on horseback, watching. Send him a voice:

Master of tree weird, Master of earth weird,
Riding between day and night and through the dreams of man
Leaper over ditch and mound, river and wood
Holder of the secret key, ride forth and appear!
Not above nor below, not there, not here
But in the knowledge clear of woman and man.
Come with wind! Come invisible if you will,
Come with the people of the storm.

Turn around and fix your eyes on the fire in the twilight. Walk towards the two trees, with your palms towards the ground. Walk along the water-trail you have made; do not ever leave it. Speak:

Fate-weaver's strands, binding grove and well
Pond and tree, fire and circling rock
Not by hands nor words is Fate woven
But by the Woman with star-filled eyes
And her great field of darkness.
World of nine times and nine deeps,
Where weirds hide their truthful shapes,
And life and death struggle forever:
Let summer fade and winter win,
Let winter break and summer grow,
Always the ebb and the flow.
In that turning, let light increase
Let the power collect in me, rising without end.
Amid the darkness of unseen things,
The Master rides with his rade
Let him bring the key of life and death.


Arrow Maker: As you reach the trees, turn around and face the pole. It will be gone; in its place, you will see the Horseman. He will ride forth with great might and come to a circling halt before you. He will reach down and hand you the Key of life and death- an arrow. Etched on it will be many strange signs, but you need not worry as to their meanings. Bend your neck to him and say "I honor the Lady and the Old World". He will nod and ride away to the east. You will turn and hurl the arrow between the two trees, towards the fire, but it will not land before you; it will vanish as it passes between the trees.

This is a sign that the Sundown Door is opened. You will place your hand over your heart and commend yourself to the Lady and step through the two trees, but as you pass through, watching your fire, the twilight will vanish, to be replaced by a night full of stars. The fire will still be there, glaring through the darkness, and it will seem further away than it was before. The two trees will no longer be to your left and right; instead, a man and a woman, naked and covered with dark markings, will be standing- they are the weirds of the tree and the dead. They will walk you towards the fire, which is on a land-rise. When you reach it, you will pass the fire by a few paces, and hear the voices of many people in the valley below.

Under the bright stars, and with the full moon overhead, you will see many smaller fires below you, and distantly. The shapes of men and women will be next to them; they are the ancients, still worshiping the stars by building fires on earth to match their places in the night sky. Look up; you will see the arrangements of the stars in the sky have been recreated on the earth with the fires of the earth. The people are gazing up, making their songs. You have forgotten what shapes the stars made- the hunters, the beasts they chased, the heroes who killed monsters. Before you on the ground, in the star-fires, is the Lady's bower. Above you is Her bower. Behind you, the ghost-fire you kindled is the pole star come to earth.

Walk away from your fire. Walk down into the dark valley, and pass the other star-fires. The people there will not turn to see you; you are a spirit to them. They will continue to adore the stars. You will walk to the center of the Lady's bower, and before you, out of the darkness, will come bounding a great and majestic red deer. She will stop before you and gaze at you with the most ancient eyes. She waits.

You must bend your knee to her and tell her that you recognize her as the source of life. You must say it with your heart. You must withhold nothing. She will nod her head back and a blessing will enter you. Then, the red deer will turn into a great deer of wood and straw. She will burst into flames, and the fire will rage bright; hundreds of sparks will fly upwards, seeking the stars. That is how the stars came to be in the sky.

Old Man Who Lives In The Stones: You will reach out and seize one of the sparks, and it will carry you upwards like a glowing moth into the sky. You will be lifted upwards by the spark, into the darkness between the many brilliant white stars, all of which will turn into men and women, all standing on a field of utter darkness- the ground which is the sky. They are white-skinned, draped in white animal skins, all facing towards a larger light, which you could not see from the earth. In that light, on a great chair of silvery and white, sits the Lady, whose earth-form you just met and honored in Her form of the red deer. Through it, you and She have both transformed upwards, and you can come into the presence of Her starry-form, Her true shape.

From above She sees all. From far beyond Her light, in the darkness, is the sound of the weaving of eternity. Her people are gathered around Her seat, and She smiles in recognition at you. She is the source of all life, and She has revealed Herself to you as best a mortal man can receive Her.

Arrow Maker: I am there, in Her court of stars, and so is the Old Man Who Lives In The Stones. So are all of us who once lived on the earth, and whose ghosts stay bound to the earth. We are here, above, too. The Horseman is here, too- see: he is the Son of Light. The great Life Spirit is here, too- everywhere. We are all Fate; no power is excluded. But the source of it all is the Lady, she is the power of powers, the fiery spirit of fires, the source of the many waters.

To live perpetually among the stars of the sky is not difficult; the key to this place is knowing the source of all things and recognizing it, withholding nothing. Those who forget their true source are capable of every evil; they become the servants of the evil powers that tear the world and life down to the murky clot of water, blood, earth and salt in which it began. They reduce things to their roots. They do this by making incomplete that which should be complete; their words are evil, and their dreams are evil.

They follow a road that is broad and dark- you must follow the narrow road of the water that passes between the two trees, for those trees are life and death. It is a road full of the redness of blessings, the blessings of the deer that the ancients hunted, and which sustained them. The earth sustained them, because they recognized it and loved it. The sky sustained them and the stars- we, the stars- sustained them. They knew harmony then and now, for true harmony is beginningless and endless. They knew how all things have many shapes, how trees and stones spoke like people and could look like people. They knew the old magic.

Old Man Who Lives In The Stones: Take this harmony, offered to you now- look at Her, on Her throne: She beckons. Two lives for you begin today, a life above and below, which are the same life.

Before you came here, only the earth and the underworld were in your range of power; now, the stars, earth, and underworld are; the star-court has become your new earth, and the earth of old is now your underworld, and you will see its many lost souls and dangers, all in a new light. And below that? In the darker, deeper underworld? There is no deeper; if you were to return to earth, and go below, you would find yourself here again, in the stars.

For you, the dark underworld's once dim and terrifying shapes have become stars! That dark source below- mother source of waters- has become the bright throne! Know that they were always stars; it was a dark dream that led you to believe otherwise, a dark dream that is also among the Fateful powers. Embrace the joy you feel now. There is a joy at the heart of Fate, a crystalline body of indestructible life for all.

In joy, one day in your life below, commit your body and soul to the ground. Should you go onto a pyre, the sparks will carry you back here, instantly. Should you go into the mound, you will merge as we did and become a phantom bound for countless millennia, at least from the reckoning of mortal men and women who still wander the earth and eat meat and bread. For you, time will cease. You can teach those few who may speak to you to find their way to the sundown door, or show them what other things Fate asks you to tell them.

But your spirit will still be here, as well as below. Your spirit will no longer sleep in the wholeness of the sky, sleeping here as many others do; it is awake now for all time.

Look at the Lady; She is calling you to come before Her. There is someone she wishes you to meet. What remains of your mind of earth and water and air is about to become whole.

The Boast of the Hidden People

Seek our liches in wood or grit or down in trickling dark,
In sparrow or buck or silvery fish, you'll find us never and naught;
Our fetches are clear, like unto wind, though never one and same;
We are the earthy darkling things, waned ancient 'afore men came.

On windswept lands and seven hills our crowns of old were raised,
On every tree we perched a-guard; on every tump our fires blazed!
In the lowest dale beneath our halls, whispering life took form;
We saw the sun make all things new, from every fort on every morn.

The world gapes bare, but just for you: bright air is still our home;
With Night our matron, Cunning our king, and trickery our song.
We are stealing cold and taking rot, the imps of nightly dread;
We are fluttering birds, May-warm breeze, by fearful offerings fed.

The Traveling Man

The land rises up, darkly wooded, and surrounds the house like a downy cloak, an obscuring field of green and brown which upsets the passage of time. Something of the old world is still living in the land under the house, and in the house. The little stream runs silently on, a boundary shades cannot cross.

The people who built this home in 1850 are still here. I have seen the photographs of the dining room, from many generations ago- the wreath of evergreen above the mantle, the dark-wood table and chairs, the tiny flames in the candelabra. Many nights bitter wind and snow beat against the house, but the family inside was warm and at peace together.

They are still at peace together; they see the underworld as their own house; they are not at all aware of what year I perceive it to be. In peace, they eat the food of the dead, while I eat my own bread and cooked meat in the same room they once dined in. This will continue for both of us- my family in the seen, and theirs in the unseen, until the light from the east comes and shows us both the truth.


I am a traveling man; I have seen the signs in the lodge, and the Horseman in the woods. We living men put too much stock in the vanity of perception: what number will I call the "year"? It has no number. Where shall I say I am? In the wooded valley? In the land of the living? All lands are really one land- what has changed in the dead is nothing but how they perceive. Maybe it is I who have changed, and they have it right. I ignore as much as they ignore, and I cannot say that I am so much happier in the comings and goings of my life than they. And yet, I contain a fire warming me that most of the dead dearly seek.

Who are we? Restless spirits that become fascinated with trees or snowy lanes? With houses and children? With mysteries or passion? I think that description is adequate in ways. What force drove us to our present passions and fixations? Whatever power did, I think that no force less than the original will serve to drive us onward to new destinies. In every jewel-like vision of the world, dark or light, full of snow or thirsty scrubland, crowned with houses and buildings or towering mountains, I feel that something has been embedded- a secret sketch of Fate- showing us all, whatever our situation, the secret pattern under destiny's plow.

There are things in the woods around the house- some look like people, some like short, squat beasts that are part man and part animal, others that seem like drifting, living light. The ray of Weird reality seems to have broken into a million splintered projections when it passed through the prism of matter- and so we humans live in perpetual companionship with countless untold wonders and terrors of life.

Those refractions that fall within our "middle range" of being look like unto ourselves, and we join with them eagerly- but the bowers and distant places shelter a different order of being. We have always sensed them; we have named them, feared them, worshipped them, and finally disbelieved them- but they remain. They persist for the same reasons we persist. The have destinies like ours, though we may never understand.


The things in the forest have a Master; He rides along, between day and night, haunting mortal memory and imagination. There are books of folklore that speak of Him; books of faery-tales in which He appears in a dozen forms; there are books of magic that talk about Him, too- but more often than not, these three kinds of books are one and the same. Their themes are all of a Weird-power that summons Him.

It is not into some triangle marked on the ground, nor into thuribles of billowing incense that He appears; He appears in the inner recesses of the mind to those who are inspired by the secret key. The key is in the stories; the key is in the land; it is in the strange appearances and dances of the things out there, hiding behind the boughs and branches. It is the key that children are born with, and which graying adults laughingly tell them to discard. Life and death are discarded with it; Life and death are found when it is rediscovered.

Once he arrives, that old Horseman, he never disappears. He may leave, but He stays at the same time. He rides between "here" and "there". So do we, if we are the true traveling men or women- if we can travel with the secret company that slips between raindrops and snowflakes like ghosts on the wind. The Horseman is embedded in the arcane map of the land above and below. He and all his kind- His courtiers, His servants, and His Lady. They are the people of the wind, of the invisible. They are the company of the storm.


Sometimes I'd stand outside at night, in windstorms. The trees would bend in the fierce gale, raining down invisible leaves and branches, and then, the gust would die out and it would be quiet suddenly. Just as quickly, another wind from the distance would roar up, like it was answering the call of the first, or perhaps chasing it across the dark landscape: two wind-spirits rushing past the sleeping houses and disturbed forests, heedless of anything else.

The old powers- older than mankind- were still living their ageless lives out, while we ignored them: Old Wind, Good Mother Green Gown, King Oak, Lady Birch, Cunning Master Raven, and all their kin: there they were, hidden in plain sight, in a patchwork of potent mythology that we just called "the woods" or "the country lane".

I think witches must have been following those winds, flying along as they do, on their riding-poles, chased by familiars across the moonlit sky. These old hags, young women, and stranger men were still mindful of the power that was all around, and there, in the storm, they were waxing powerful in the deepest of lessons. Some of us lose heart. The world sleeps in forgetfulness. But some never forget.

Some lose the ability to see, but I can see. When I was given the mark of a traveling man, and I went to the forked road beyond the mountains east, I was given the golden drop of elixir that changed my eyes of water into eyes of fire. Now, I see what the water reflects, and within, what the luminous light of spirit radiates. There are eyes within eyes, and those inner eyes see the truth of things.


Finding a sorcerer was no easy thing. Finding a witch was seemingly impossible, in these days- thus, I was forced to seek the sorcerer in myself. That was not easy, either. When I did, I discovered that the road of the traveling man was no simple matter, full of hooks and crooks, turning forever into myself, and joining together places across space and time: places that look like high-gabled houses and steepled churches, as well as unseen castles of stone not piled by human hands.

In that ghostly weave-work there were tangles of sacred thorns and firs, rowans and oaks, and there were deep wells of water, ponds and gurgling streams. They all lined up, in their own ways; they pointed somewhere else. The peace of nature’s domain and the wildness of mystery were joined together in their arrangement. There was a sacred geometry here, not shaped by human hands, but dimensioned by human minds. The greater pattern contains us; we cannot write it nor mark it out.

The greatest majesty of Fate could be missed if you looked just to the left or right too much. If you saw with the eyes of luminosity, the world was nine times larger than it appeared, and nine times deeper, nine times more layered. Animals ceased to be what they appeared to be, and yet remained the same. Glorious beings of light and foul pits of darkness wandered the land, struggling in a beautiful fight that generated mortal life and the turning of seasons.

And between it all, hidden like a diamond in the bosom of ebon coal, was the Horseman, riding along, teaching His hidden ways. The witches and sorcerers I couldn't find before appeared behind Him, and all over the hidden landscape- those cunning old fiends had learned to change their residence to a place that suited them better! They had found the key of life and death.

They changed their shape, their place, their minds, their form, their land. They did it with their words- creative words, creative in a way that only the tongues of Daimons should be able to manage. Their creativity was more than a warm place in the soul; it was a mind-shaking redefinition of all that man hoped or feared was real. It was rain falling, light pouring, deathless fire burning, and hypnotizing dances that couldn't make sense inside of three-dimensional space. It was the life of the universe, the heart-beat of the mighty Weird, the death of Gods and the birth of stars.


It all came together; it all came to cease, to rest, to hide in a single oak-leaf, drifting to the snowy ground outside the house. There was a light in the window. The night that had settled on the land was immense, filled only with the sound of wind and owls. Still, immense, and full of hidden glories.

I can read the secret in oak-leaves, or in any leaf. I am a traveling man; I wander a world larger than the map can reveal. I know the Horseman’s word. I know the strange names by which fogs and mists are woven and unwoven. I have kissed the hands of the maids-in-waiting that surround the Lady. I know the names of the monstrous serpents that slithered across the virgin world, leaving mountains and valleys in the wake of their giant bodies. I know how to use the sorcery of words to change men's minds and shape their dreams.