Journal The Druid’s Way

[Romolo]

August 19th (midnight)

When I got to the woods, the darkness was near-complete. Where was the Full Moon? Still behind the trees. Moonrise was at 8.40pm, I was early. I had hurried. What for? (This would soon be revealed.) My eyes adjusted quickly and the dark/grey turned blue/silver. I decided to sit down in the grass, and keep my magical artifacts in my bag. Earlier today I had found two lip-formed leaves by picking in a stagnant pond with a long, dead branch of a weeping willow. They had great oracle potential. I sat down in the dark grass on a small hill (ten steps and I was at the top) with the edge of the woods behind me. I waited, but no lighter shade of grey appeared above the trees in the East. I got up, poured out some water on the grass that had carried me, and moved on. I knew this grove well. I walked silently and swiftly. There was a bench where I had been on another nightly occasion. I closed my eyes, and heard an insane wail. From the tone, I could tell it was a small mammal in the act of dying. Or maybe it was being sacrified. I know other witches are active here: one day I found the front leg of a roe tied to a tree (see March 2nd). I took the heart-breaking sound as an omen to leave the dark woods and go home. Just before I left, in the last staight line (I could already see the orange light of the street lamp), I tripped over a stone the size of a plum. I managed not to fall, picked up the stone, and walked on. Now the moon was out in full glory, with the fiery gold of a Supermoon above the horizon. The moon pointed at me, like a finger. I appear for everyone, I am given, I cannot be claimed. In my dark hand, I held a grey piece of terran rock, and the lunar rock behind me was golden. Later, in front of my altar, the moon appeared in the south, this time in her recognizable silvery white aspect. I had tied a cup-shaped piece of white clay against the rock, and the clay reflected the moonlight. And lessons washed over me, insights, healing.

 

[Romolo]

August 21st/22nd (past midnight)

The Book of Nature contains all, we just have to open it, flip the pages, and read the imagery. A few days ago I pulled out a full-grown fennel plant from the garden, and I was struck by its roots: they reminded me of snakes. So different from the fennel's bulb and the lush, celestial & feathery foliage!

I placed the cluster of roots on a wand and wound a snake of clay around it. Medusa-whose-hair-are-roots. Was this how her story begun, some five milennia ago, long before she transformed as a character into the great spectacle of the Greek mythology? Proto-Medusa, a chthonic goddess who "knows" the Underground. She can "see" what is below.

I will consacrate this wand to Hekate and do more explorations in the coming days.

 

[Romolo]

September 3rd

Ever since I started "the Great Work" I can say that I've become more oriented towards the World and the other(s). I am now a more reliable person, a better friend, a better son and brother. There is now something other than myself at the core of my life, which must seem like a paradox to the non-initiated, for whom magic is obsessed with the Self. I believe this is a misconception. Magic leads us back to the World, despite ourselves. It offers a bony hand on a dark trail where no light shines.

Surrender has been (and remains) a powerful key word on my journey. It has been the ultimate requisite in opening up towards spirituality. Nothing can be achieved without surrendering. Sometimes I had to meticulously follow through on rituals and series of devotions without seeing any results. Instead I felt a slow growth, like a root growing deeper, or reality shifting less than a degree. The Great Work is slow.

The more I advance, the more difficult it becomes to describe this advanced understanding, and the less I feel the need to. In the past days, I often sat in front of a flickering cursor. Nothing felt urgent enough to be written down, but I see it as a challenge to continue to do so.

 

[Romolo]

September 5th

Today I tried to make paint out of black nightshade. Curiously, after straining the berries, the liquid was not black but translucent green, similar to absinth. Adding soap and cornstarch (as the website questionably suggested) was a recipe for disaster. I will need to try another batch, but will wait a few weeks until all the berries are ripe. I really need at least two cups filled to the brim. I can use the paint to trace sigils on paper, to paint a spiral on wands, to leave marks on walls, or to make consacrated aquarels.

In Margaret Baker's "Discovering the Folklore of Plants" (a booklet that disappoints more often than it helps), I discovered only one thing about nightshade that I had not read elsewhere: "Nightshade had cowshed and stable uses also; a nightshade collar saved cattle from the Evil Eye and nightshade was an instant cure. A bewitched human, too, should consider a wreath of nightshade around his forehead."

In a vivid dream I had as a kid, I was on the back of a flying cow. I can still feel the sturdy warmth of the cowhide against my bare legs. The cow had the wings of a bat, but held open like an albatros or dinosaur. Maybe I will make a wreath of nightshade and wear it during a ritual, so that I can connect with the kid that I was, and still am.