Thirteen Points of Advice for Those Starting on the Path

The following are thirteen points of advice and guidance I'd give to anyone starting out of the path.  They aren't exclusive, there are other things to know.  And they aren't original, they are drawn from many sources.  And they are from my point of view, so should not be taken as gospel.  I hope they help some who read them.  Before getting into them, four books I'd recommend before most others, and I have a very long recommended reading list, are the following:

• Visual Magick by Jan Fries (Paperback, Kindle)
• Drawing Down the Spirits by Kenaz Filan and Raven Kaldera (Paperback, Kindle)
• Mysticism: Initiation and Dream by Andrew D. Chumbley (J.D. Holmes - US, Three Hands Press - UK)
• The Robert Cochrane Letters by Robert Cochrane and Evan John Jones (Out of print but available through Amazon)

And that being said, here are the thirteen points of advice that are my intention if sharing this:

1. Mutual respect is essential. Respect the spirits, and expect respect in return. If you don't receive it, they're out, burnt, or cut off.
2. All things have a spirit, and that spirit can be worked with and learned from. Some work with them as servants, or worship them and become servants. I prefer to work with them as partners. There is an authority in knowing you are equal with all things.
3. People (and spirits) see what they expect to see. Open your eyes, then open them again. Observe. Perceive. Understand.
4. What conceals also reveals. Look beneath the surface, both in of what your senses (physical or otherwise) tell you and what teachings, lore, and myth tell you. What they hide is as important as what they say.
5. Learn to ask the right questions. Asking the wrong question will send you in the wrong direction. There are no bad questions, but often looking at the question in the right way opens doors. And always ask the next question, don't let the answer be the end of the question.
6. When all else fails, cheat. Don't assume that the traditional way to do something, the way everyone does it, or the way you've always done it is the only approach. If it doesn't work, do something else.
7. Divide and conquer. If something is baffling or seems to be concealing something you can't quite grasp or see, break it down, look at each part of it separately, determine where something is missing, concealed, or not working, and focus there.
8. Only you are responsible for your actions and words, no one else, and you aren't responsible for anyone else's. Do what is necessary, but accept the responsibility for it. Own what you say and what you do, regardless of the consequences or what you think of them later. Don't pass blame, and don't take it on.
9. Learn from all things. All beings, objects, persons, spirits, circumstances, lore, teachings, regardless of the source or pain or issues, contain beauty, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom, and can be learned from, if you ask the right questions, look beneath the surface, and separate what has value from what doesn't. There's a saying in Hawai'i that not all knowledge is found in one shed.
10. Be willing to consider any idea, no matter how different from your own. Examine it, understand it, but don't just accept it in you process. Hold on firmly to what you know, and only change it if there is good reason to do so.
11. Everybody lies, misrepresents, and hides things. This goes for spirits as well as living humans, and all things. Never assume you are being told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We all speak through our filters, understand based on our experiences, hide what we don't want seen, and mislead when it will gain us something. Make no assumptions about the truth of, completeness of, or accuracy of anything you are told. This goes for what you tell yourself as well. Look deeper, examine. Observe. Perceive. Understand.
12. What is yours, you need to hold, protect, defend. As Cochrane said, "What I have--I hold!" You are guardian and keeper of what is yours. Find what that is, and keep it against the storm.
13. What you put in, you get out. As we say in computers, garbage in, garbage out. Only you control what you get from the path. No effort, no result. No danger, no gain. Victor Anderson said anything worth doing is dangerous, and Cochrane said take all you are given, give all of yourself. Huna teaches that where your attention goes, the mana goes, and Taoist thought teaches similar, where the mind goes, the chi follows. Where you focus, that's where your energy is, what you think about and contemplate, that is where you will learn. It's all about you. You hold the reins. Make the most of it.

Hope these are helpful for some.

FFF,

~Muninn's Kiss

The Road to Tipherah: Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces

"The first step in finding beauty is to see it. There is beauty in all things." ~Grimr

Beauty is a hard thing to find, not because it's so rare, but because it's so common. It is everywhere, in all things, both in the wonderful and the horrible. It is everywhere, but we don't see it because it's everywhere, we are numbed to it, so therefore blind to it. A young child sees it everywhere. This is Innocence. But we lose our Innocence along the way, we cease to see beauty because we forget it's important. We see only ugliness, getting lost in the qlipoth, the empty shells of what we first knew.

At the core of the trunk of the Tree of Life stands Tipherah, Beauty, the balance of all things. Above it are the Three Minds. Da'ath, Knowing, spanning the Abyss, the Dark Bridge. Binah, Understanding, the Deep Sea. Chokmah, Wisdom, the Deep Well. Beyond is Kether, the Crown, the root of the Tree. To the right of Tipherah is Chesed, Mercy, Lovingkindness, complete openness, complete acceptance, unlimited expansion, unlimited loosing. To the left is Geburah, Judgement, Severality, complete closeness, complete denial, unlimited retreat, unlimited binding. Below are the Three Manifestations. Netzach, Victory, on the right, emotion and passion, conquest and force of arms. Victory by advancing. Hod, Glory, on the left, intellect and cunning, magic and planning. Victory by retreat, by holding back. Yesod, Foundation, in the middle, sex and subconsciousness, instinct and intuition, the foundation of Action. And below, Malkuth, Kingdom, Manifestation of Manifestation, the Three Manifestations becoming Action. The playground of the soul.

Beauty stands at the centre, if it is lost, the whole Tree is lost. This is the lose of Innocence, and results in separating us from the Root. We become a branch or a twig or a leaf, drying and dying without the sustenance that can come only from the Root. And, as the dying leaf, we see only darkness, only ugliness, only decay. We can't even see that even the darkness, the ugliness, and the decay contain beauty. For there is beauty, truly, in all things.

When people look at the Wasteland, they see only ugliness. Walk in the Sonora Desert that spans the United States and Mexico. People see the lack of water, the lack of shelter, the lack of life. They focus on what isn't there, on the negative. But walk in those sands and look carefully. See the form of the saguaro cacti, each stove pipe reaching to heaven like the trees of the Pacific North West. See the lizards and snakes, how they move, their skin protecting them from the environment around them. Watch the waves the wind creates in the sand, so much like the beaches of Florida that many find so beautiful. Look at the mesas rising in places, as majestic as the Rocky Mountains. The desert holds much beauty.

Walk in the High Plains of Wyoming. People see the cold and wind, the dryness and flatness, the barrenness, the remoteness. They see what's not there, not what is. They see the negative. Look closer. The plains roll, with valleys around rivers with trees, with wet spots and dry, thick vegetation and thin. Look at the old growth sagebrush, almost five feet tall, older than the oldest tree in the Pacific Northwest, ancient and strong, able to survive the freezing winter, the pounding heat of the summer, the persistent wind that scores the mountains and hills, but the sage still stands. Watch the hawk soaring on the wind, diving for a rabbit or rodent. Watch the pronghorn antelope run faster than most cars, bounding and tearing across the plains. The High Plains abound with life. And with beauty.

People will point to the worst of mankind, of the qlipoth and dying leaves, and say, no, here is a place there is no beauty. Take rape for instance they will say. There is nothing beautiful about rape. There is pain and suffering, hurt and no hope. But they're once again looking at the negative, to what is lacking. The human spirit is strong, and beauty can rise from that ugliness. As healing comes, the victim, though scarred, will move on. They will reclaim their body that was stolen. And they might be able to help with the healing of others. Yes, there is nothing beautiful about rape, but it only stays that way if beauty is not looked for. Even from the ugliest ugliness, beauty rises from the ashes like the phoenix.

The first step in finding beauty is not to look for it, it's to see it, because it's already there. We don't see beauty when we look at what's lacking, not what's there. Sorrow is only meaningful as a lack of joy. Fear is only meaningful as a lack of courage. Pain is only meaningful as a lack of comfort. Suffering is only meaningful as a lack of peace. Ugliness is only meaningful as a lack of beauty. But these things don't exist without their opposite, for it's not truly an opposite, it's two ends of the same thread. Sorrow and joy are not distinct, it's a matter of where you are on the thread. Every Yin contains Yang and can be further divided into Yin and Yang. Every Yang contains Yin and can be further divided into Yin and Yang. There is ugliness in beauty, but there is beauty in ugliness.

Finding beauty is the reclaiming of Innocence. And it is found purely by opening our eyes and seeing clearly the beauty that is before us, all around us, in everything. And with the return of Innocence, and the return of Beauty, Tipherah, the Tree of Life returns and we are connected once more to the Root, nourished by that Source from which all things spring, and to which all things return.

So look! Open your eyes! Let he who has eyes see, let he who has ears hear! The beauty is around you and in you. Look and see it!

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

*The subtitle comes from the album from Seether, released after the suicide of the lead singer's brother. Many of the songs are him working through that pain and sharing the good that could come out of it.

Six New Books, From Inanna to the Grail, From Mongolia to the Modern World

Yesterday, I bought three new books from Night Heron, the local used bookstore, and ordered three from Amazon, which will be here in a couple weeks.

Starhawk is the author of the famous book Spiral Dance.  She is a Feri initiate who went out and did her own thing.  This book, Truth or Dare, is a look at the nature of Power and how to find us in our lives to create change in our lives and communities.  It uses the myth of the descent of Inanna, in several different retellings, to present this idea.  It uses the descent to show how we need to identify and shed off the things that hold us back.

This book, Elements of the Grail Tradition by John Matthews, looks at the test, trials, and initiations found in the Arthurian and Grail legends in the pursuit of the Grail, from the most ancient known Celtic legends up through the Middle Ages, to identify what the Grail truly is.

This book is by my friend Francesca De Grandis.  I've been wanting to get Goddess Initiation since I picked it up in the Tattered Cover down in Denver a year or so ago, before I knew Francesca and didn't notice who the author was.   I was very excited to find it here in town.  The book is basically a year long lesson plan on how to find your inner goddess and your priesthood.

This book, The Book of Qualities by J. Ruth Gendler, is basically a book of personifications of common human qualities.  A friend of mine from of mine from high school posted a piece about Beauty from it on Facebook and it really touched me, so I found it and ordered it.  It looks amazing.

This book is a guide to Mongolian and Siberian shamanism.  The author, Sarangerel, is actually trained in Mongolia.  She was born in the US but of a Mongol bloodline, and traveled to Mongolia and did the work and study and research to truly know the tradition and the people of her ancestors, then share it with world.  This book is her introduction to the tradition, including rituals and techniques.  It is one of the major sources for one of the books I'm reading, Calling Down the Spirits.

This is Francesca De Grandis's newest book, just recently released.  It looks amazing.  It is about finding and realizing your dreams, seeing your own beauty, and finding your freedom.  I'm really looking forward to it arriving.


FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

Magic of the Land

A few years ago, I chose as a working site a clearing on top of a wooded hill near a lake way up in the mountains.  It takes about forty-five minutes to drive there over highways and dirt roads, then about fifteen minutes to walk to it.  It is very beautiful up there, and isolated so there's no chance of being disturbed, and I doubt anyone but me has stepped foot into that clearing since I chose it, let alone gone near the circle I cleared of a few layers of rock.  It is the Rocky Mountains, so the soil is full of rocks all the way down to bed rock.  Most of the rocks are about the size of your fists, but some are larger.  I piled the ones I removed around the circumference.  I followed my instincts when I dedicated and tied the site to myself and to the valley I live in, but I won't describe that now.

The one issue with a working site up there is that this is Wyoming, where the winters are long and cold, and the roads are impassible for nine months or more most years.  So it's a summer site.  I take advantage of that time as much as I can, and do other types of workings during the time I can't get to it.  About this time of year, I start checking as when they open the road varies each year.  The other magical site I use, for much different purposes, is real high up, near the top of a pass, and has ten feet of snow over it this time of year on a normal year and I can't usually get to it until mid July and can't get there after August or September if I'm lucky.  They usually get that road open by Memorial Day (last Monday), but they predict it won't open at all this year because there's so much snow there, and what they plow during the day gets filled back in with ten feet each night, due to wind and fresh snowfall.  So I'm not ever trying that site.

So I went for a drive out in the county, out toward the mountains this afternoon.  It was beautiful day, bright sunshine, blue sky with floating clouds.  The road was still closed, though, a metal cable stretched across and a sign saying the road was closed in half a mile.  I will have to wait a little longer, I guess.  Though I couldn't make it to where I was driving, I took in the beauty and enjoyed the countryside.  It's days like this, lazy drives with stunning views, that remind me of why I love Wyoming.  There is magic in the mountains, the hills, the plains, the streams, the lakes, the irrigation channels, the glens, the dells, the ranches, the public lands.  You just need eyes to see.  You just need to reach out with your soul and you will know, you will feel the magic in the land.

Wyoming
By Muninn's Kiss

Under blue skies, stretching across the heavens,
Brighter and bigger than the mind can contain.
Rolling, billowing clouds float like islands,
Shadows that creep across the hills.

Hills and flat lands stretching and rolling,
Browns and greens, sagebrush and grass.
Hidden dells and meandering streams,
Secrets hidden in the folds of the land.

Mountains rise in purples and blues,
Snow filled gullies and rocky peaks.
So tall and so huge when standing among them,
The huge sky and plains make them seems small.

Aspen groves, green and dense, full of life,
One but many, they stand vigil around the streams.
The greens so bright, the leaves swaying in the wind,
Trees of healing, reaching out and touching my soul.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss