Journal The Druid’s Way

[Romolo]

Keeping track of some experiences here. The idea that one person might read these notes — and find them useful — inspires me to write.

Sept 21th, 2023

We took over a garden and I suspect one of the previous owners to have been esoterically inclined. Amidst the bushes of oregano and savory there is a magnificent orange sandstone the size of an anvil. It feels very much like a foundation piece and I have been drawn to this soft rock from the first day. It became my “altar“ and I often place feathers on it, dried-up butterflies or insects, flowers that have fallen from other trees. It’s like a space for things that deserved a better ending.
Today I sat down in front of it with the waxing moon behind me in the early evening sky, and put my bare feet on its surface, then my hands. I sustained a 3-1/3-1 breathing and imagined earth mana flowing in and out of my outstretched palms. I then place my hands on my knees, chest and neck. The stone communicated nothing to me, except a soft “here I am”, with a sovereignty that only abiotic entities possess.
While walking home I felt calm and airy. As I closed the gate of the garden community, I picked up a tiny branch the size of a pinky. I was struck by its lightness. I thought “this is how the stone must have felt me”. I placed down this branch under a tree and covered it with a leaf (branches are never thrown). When I arrived home, I had to try longer than usual to open the doors. My two key chains got entangled and the keys felt blunt and strange.

 

[Romolo]

October 6th, 2023

Two weeks have passed since I accidentally summoned Odin in front of the altar and I often find myself drifting back to that mystical experience. Magic has a way of also moving against the stream of time, like a translucent salmon.

It was the first time I traced a actual circle around me when sitting in front of the stone. I also brought something this time; a bowl of water. My idea was to implement an adder-shaped branch and a dagger in the ritual. Holding a snake and a knife (two things I fear) inside the circle felt greatly empowering and balancing. I put down the dagger in the grass and gently pressed down my palms over the blade and grip, one left, one right. With half-closed eyes, I suddenly saw one-eyed Odin looking up at me. I felt no fear. “Odin,” I said subvocally, “is there something I can do for you? If so, make your request knowable.” The question, I realize now, was quite humble. Odin’s reply did not consist of words, but of understanding on a deeper, post-lexical level. I saw two crows flying in a helix spiral.

Before I could ask anything from you, you have to learn so much more. I shall help you.

 

[Romolo]

October 19th, 2023

Today on my home I finally picked up the long ominous black branch that I spotted earlier this week. It was curved like an oboe. A tender rain fell over the soft street, and I was on the phone with my brother, talking about his first child who will be born on Samhain. As we spoke I peeled off the bark with my thumb. Inside was the white ivory of the inner branch. I cracked it in half by using the fence of the playground as teeth. ”A flute,” I thought. We said goodbye, I placed the tip of the branch against my lips and started humming a tune in the rain, my fingers effortlessly miming the notes. Action = intuition = truth. I felt like the satyr that I am.

 

[Romolo]

October 23rd, 2023

I am not afraid of the eyes anymore. This time it’s Mujung’s yellow flowers, the tarragon leaves, speckles of lavender… I put a branch on the stone and it just out on both ends. Horns. Meanwhile I can hear screeching geese flying north, so high, so small and incredibly loud. With the tip of my dagger, I cut out their cuneiform V in the slab of wet sand in front of the altar.

Did some mirror magic before leaving the house and a lady in the U-Bahn started talking to me. She had a big box of pralines and goofy pink hair. When she got up she curiously “wished me all the best with all my endeavors”. A bit later, an older Arab gentleman greeted me as well with something of a sly smile. In a shop (unfortunately closed) I spotted a beautiful but very ominous-looking crescent moon stand.

 

[Romolo]

November 3rd

When talking to the Gods, be their words, through movement, gesture, grace. You can wonder later what it means. In fact you will have a whole lifetime.

During yesterday‘s ritual, I sought council of a sphinx. They appeared in a composition of shards, flowers, plumes and earthenware. After a short introduction, I was invited to put a glass diamond between my lips. This particular stone represents Tiphareth in my qabalistic practice.

The tongue is the diamond, I realized (or the sphinx communicated, through me). Not a diamond, but the diamond. The sphinx had been very clear.

I scanned the symbolism in the first degree: the tongue can cast a hundred beautiful reflections (meanings, interpretations), it can refract the world, each tile (word?) containing just one aspect, but at the same time the diamond is incredibly strong, it can cut deeper than steel… right to the bone, till it bleeds.

I closed the ritual and walked home, feeling a renewed sharpness in my unspoken words.

 

[Romolo]

November 8th

At the exit of S Warschauerstraße, you can literally feel the cables of parallel universes, all wrapped up tight in a bundle of beat and shimmering possibilities. ”Magick dwells between the cracks.” Here, those cracks are crevices.

A busker in a hoodie is playing the electrifying guitar solo of Thunderstruck (Ace of Spades). Meanwhile, a young man who bounces along offers me a sip of his liquor (Ace of Cups) and an audacious girl has just begged him for a 2€ coin (Ace of Pentacles).

”I lost my wallet and phone,” he grins, “and if I had money I would give it to him, not to this silly girl.” “You will have to go to the police tomorrow and ask for a new ID,” I say. His eyes are brazen. “I can’t. I’m six months out of jail and have been stealing again. Like this.” He mimics an elbow smashing in a car window. ”How was life in jail?” “Better than out here. I weighed 120kilos and had big muscles. All I did was eating, reading and doing workouts. Look at me now.“ I am silent. He offers me another sip, which I accept. “Do you have a lighter?” he asks.

At this point the working of my occult training is taking over my language, thought and action, towards the organic manifestation of the Ace of Wands. I take out something from my pocket. “I don’t have lighter, but I can give you this,” I say without a tremor of hesitation, giving him a small acorn. “To start a new life.”

He is dumbstruck. With very calm hands he puts it safely in his zip pocket. He hugs me.

We say goodbye and I catch a glimpse of his near future. He will forget about the oak seedling, until one day, with trembling fingers and in quite different circumstance, he shall find it again in that same pocket. And then the seedling will sprout roots into his mind, heart and soul, and he shall be freed.

 

[Romolo]

November 14th

J‘s enigmatic tarot deck (I need to thank them once more for their generous gift) allowed me to experience the moon‘s slow culmination from Third Quarter and Waning Crescent into the intense New Moon in Scorpio last night. As I walked home the air was literally thick and humid as ink. This morning I meditated on the Hermit, who helps illuminate even the faintest thread of truth.

A side-effect of lunar awareness is that time slows down. The moon is like a coded clock without hands. I am now even vaguely aware of the moon’s titanic weight pulling at the earth’s oceans.

I‘m in love with Ramsey Dukes‘ Abramelin Diaries (finally an occult book of flesh and blood!), but I was surprised to read: “The sky is clear and I see a crescent moon; I'd forgotten what it looked like.” (page 93) No further references to the moon are made in near 160 pages and I am almost at the sixth (and last) month of his diary.

 

[Konsciencia]

Awesome, what's happening to you seems so fascinating!

 

[Romolo]

November 19th

At my moon altar, I read out the Emerald Tablet three times. In doing so I held the tip of a forked wand against a flowery blue apatite I found in Prague. The third time my voice felt distinctly not my own.

What struck me in the line “The Sun is its Father, the Moon is its Mother, the Wind carries it in its belly, its nurse is the Earth” is the poetic allusion to extraterrestrial origin of humankind. The Earth is here not the Gaean mother Earth, but (only) the nurse, breast-feeding the child once it is born (as in Emblem 2 of the Atalanta Fugiens), while the Wind seems to “preserve“ the foetus during pregnancy as it drifts down to the surface.

I got a vision of a near-infinity of unborn souls floating in the air like the torn puffball of a dandelion. The seeds resemble spermatozoa, carried “in the belly of the wind”. Some of those will actually be transformed into life, others are forever traveling the face of the earth, waiting to be born.

 

[Romolo]

November 29th

My role in this world is not that of the protagonist, the hero, but more of a side-character, the assistant, the helper, the flying carpet, the talking tree, the donkey defecating coins. I am someone who “functions in the background in regards to survival,” (Jenny Hval, The Practice of Love) I am the ageless wanderer, the misunderstood genius, the doomed loser, the teacher who shows up with cryptic exercises, the godfather/uncle who visits once a year with a useless but unforgettable toy or artifact, the enigmatic friend who shares oracles rather than advice, the stranger on the public transport wearing a purple scarf and purple lipstick, shooting a smile or miming a snake. I am all these things, one at a time, a polymorph.

Not being the protagonist allows me, on the one hand, to be fully self-centered in my pursuit of magical knowledge and to dedicate myself to the Path, which, on the other hand, should also serve and inspire others, the protagonists around me. I need those others. We keep each other sane. If I were to become a protagonist myself (with duties & responsibilities, maybe even kids, a full-fletched adult), my right to exist within that framework would fade away. I have never been interested in that kind of life. The “complete” life. My interests belong to a world incompatible with being the hero.

In many ways I am incomplete, broken, a failure, the eternal Peter Pan. But I also believe that the assistant holds something alive that the protagonist has lost along the way: “And we will be guided toward salvation precisely by the companion who has lost his way. It is his face that we will recognize in the angel who sounds the trumpet or who carelessly drops the Book of Life from his hands.” (Agamben, Profanations, page 34)

 

[Konsciencia]

November 29th

My role in this world is not that of the protagonist, the hero, but more of a side-character, the assistant, the helper, the flying carpet, the talking tree, the donkey defecating coins. I am someone who “functions in the background in regards to survival,” (Jenny Hval, The Practice of Love) I am the ageless wanderer, the misunderstood genius, the doomed loser, the teacher who shows up with cryptic exercises, the godfather/uncle who visits once a year with a useless but unforgettable toy or artifact, the enigmatic friend who shares oracles rather than advice, the stranger on the public transport wearing a purple scarf and purple lipstick, shooting a smile or miming a snake. I am all these things, one at a time, a polymorph.

Not being the protagonist allows me, on the one hand, to be fully self-centered in my pursuit of magical knowledge and to dedicate myself to the Path, which, on the other hand, should also serve and inspire others, the protagonists around me. I need those others. We keep each other sane. If I were to become a protagonist myself (with duties & responsibilities, maybe even kids, a full-fletched adult), my right to exist within that framework would fade away. I have never been interested in that kind of life. The “complete” life. My interests belong to a world incompatible with being the hero.

In many ways I am incomplete, broken, a failure, the eternal Peter Pan. But I also believe that the assistant holds something alive that the protagonist has lost along the way: “And we will be guided toward salvation precisely by the companion who has lost his way. It is his face that we will recognize in the angel who sounds the trumpet or who carelessly drops the Book of Life from his hands.” (Agamben, Profanations, page 34)

In other words, be the sidekick rather than the hero.

 

[Romolo]

In other words, be the sidekick rather than the hero.

I believe so. Accepting this role offers a lot of interesting possibilities. It also makes the Path less lonesome and forces us to stay in touch with the others.

 

[Konsciencia]

I believe so. Accepting this role offers a lot of interesting possibilities. It also makes the Path less lonesome and forces us to stay in touch with the others.

That's fantastic!

 

[Romolo]

December 2nd

Around noon I went to the altar to check on the Centaur. I had pushed it gently into the thick layer of snow. It was still completely stuck to the stone. I will leave it there until it starts thawing. The Centaur is (or was) a bonsai tree that died a few months ago because of my own negligence. I tried everything in my powers to regenerate it, but to no avail.

In the afternoon I painted the head of Zeus-Ammon, a detail of a Roman oil lamp found in Pompei. The satyr-like hunk caught me off guard during a moment of mindless scrolling on instagram and somehow demanded me to be portrayed. I made a sketch and picked four colors: olive green, viridian, light red and yellow ochre.

I consider the appearance of Zeus-Amon (a mighty “Oracle” so I read) on the advent of my Hekataeon initiation a favorable omen to go ahead. From Hesiod’s Theogony: “And Asteria conceived and bare Hecate whom Zeus the son of Cronos honoured above all. He gave her splendid gifts, to have a share of the earth and the unfruitful sea.“ Maybe this painting is another one of those gifts. I will frame it in gold and put it on my shrine.

Post automatically merged: Dec 3, 2023

December 3rd

On the way to the woods I spotted an odd mirror in a pile of human débris- parts of broken wardrobes, clocks, fridges, bed frames. All was snowed under. I looked at my face, against the pale sky. Eyes wide awake, purple lips. The top part of the wooden frame has two charming doves, on each side of a heart. I brought it to my atelier, where I adorned it with some lavender on my moon altar.

The yew tree sprouted chaotically in all directions with another tree merged within its trunk. The tree had failed to grow in one clear trunk and reminded me of my younger self. At the foot of the yew was an empty shrine filled with yellow leaves. I lit a candle there and touched the branches and needles. The bark was at certain places really a vivid granate red. A chain of thought took to pomegranates, blood, sacrifice, Persephone. Hekate.

Not wanting to crack of a branch, I peeled of some bark that was anyway going to fall off, but then, right before leaving, a thick twig tapped my leg. It was twisted in an ugly way, pushed or torn aside by some previous angry hiker. The branch had never cracked but had grown around the wound. It was partially dead. At its end still grew lush clusters of needles. I snapped it off and it gave way as if it had to be. I said grace to the yew, placed Hekate's emblem at its base and sealed the middle with a few drops of wax.

 

[Romolo]

December 8th

I woke up at 7am, washed myself with a small bowl of water then walked to my atelier. The world was still asleep and magnificent. Nothing beats dawn. A pearl-colored waning crescent moon followed me through the branches of the trees, like the horns of a playful baby goat. No one was queuing at the bakery so I hopped in to buy a loaf and also a piece of the crême brûlée I love. After I had my coffee I sent some emails I forgot yesterday, mostly notes to my students, then I somehow got into a cleaning mode. I even went outside to swipe the leaves and cedar debris. I collected the gorgeous copper-colored pine cones in a bucket. The silver-haired lady from the daycare started talking to me for the first time. The fact that I was sweeping leaves must have kindled her sympathy. In fact, I now realize she is almost always holding a broom stick, whenever I see her outside. I thought about my late grandmothers and my mother and the millions of women who execute invisible tasks that no one sees, without ever getting credit for them. The broom stick… No surprise the medieval church felt so threatened by independent women who liberated themselves out of submissive roles, lived on their own, did their own healing.

 

[Romolo]

December 10th

After consecrating the string of prayer beads that will serve me as oracle tomorrow, me and J. kept watch around the torch and looked around the park for signs of Her presence. We spotted an enormous otherworldly bat, fat like a pigeon but with the obvious erratic zigzag of a mammal. The sight of this animal enhanced the illusion that we had been, indeed, in some kind of cavern, even though we were quite clearly in the middle of Friedrichshain, Berlin. The fiery reflection of part of the fence reminded me of the gates of Hades, exactly as I had spoken in the devotional hymn (“As Hekate made Hades in winter unlock his iron gate, so my call will draw forth Fate in the form of six stones which give tongue to what awaits”, Hekataeon page 47) In a theatrical moment I knelt down and touched the wet, grave-like soil. It was clear that She was around, and with her a party of amused spirits and ghouls— but now it was time to send them back to their in-between realm. We thanked them for their presence and told them to go in grace. I blew out the torch-like flame with a firm exhalation and from the candle came a string of smoke, a thin rope of phantoms that slid upwards in an oblique slope of 30 degrees, slightly slower than the wind.

 

[Romolo]

December 12th

”Take no step back” (Crowley)

New Moon. Proud of my achievements today, but I will let the silence do the necessary germination before revealing anything.

Observation: I just spilt some water infused with lemon on my blanket of mohair and the drops do not absorb into the wool, instead they just remain there like pearls. When I flatten them they become a shiny jelly or a web.

Yesterday I finished “The Hieroglyphic Monad”. I highlighted the line “That which is affected at the periphery, however large it may be, cannot in any way lack the support of the central point.” from Theorem III. It is such a perfect expression of the power of the circle, or generally of any magical operation with the mage at the center. The words support and periphery really resonate. However, most of the text remains opaque and unintelligible to me (at least for now). I’ll read it again in a few months.

 

[Romolo]

December 16th

“The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite.” (from Piranesi, Susanne Clarke)

I went to my favorite grove today and found a truly magnificent branch. It’s impossibly thin, covered by filigree moss, and curved in an unnaturally perfect semi-circle. Rather than a branch it resembles an extraterrestrial artifact or a sacred scythe. I picked it up and knew at once that it will be the first thing to go on the wall in my new apartment. I will hang it with the tips/horns upwards, so that it represents the moon-shaped drinking bowl that has been so crucial to my Druidic work.

I am comforted that this branch finds me now, ‘cause lately I have been plagued by doubts regarding Druidic calling. In the past weeks, I’ve been spending almost all of my skill points on Necromancy, Cultism/Devotion and Lore. But the Druidic gnosis has one remarkable advantage: there is no roof between yourself and heaven. There are no books, there is no dogma. Instead you read the world itself. The saps and rays of understanding go directly into your veins and into your soul.

I recently started experimenting with a new way of “straying” exploration which is quite easy to implement. The rule is: if your inner voice tells you to go one way, go the other way. You can apply the same to your words and thoughts. The goal is to come closer to your Opposer. It’s like Crowley’s exercise with the Three Beasts in his Liber III vel Jugorum, but in this case it’s not a unicorn, ox or horse but a snake. It also fits with the “Crooked Path” described in Via Tortuosa: “Through this meandering step, an undulating, contorted pattern is traced upon the ‘earth’ through the ‘feet’, thus actuating the primordial geoglyphic form of the Old Serpent.” (page 97) And also, on an even deeper level: “Through Opposition is the Great Work accomplished, and this accords with the Design: in perfect magical action and non-action in every manner, one comes into confrontation with the Path.” (page 33)

 

[Romolo]

December 21st

I learned a devotional hymn by heart and kept saying it until the words were really mine. At this point I discovered a hidden layer in the prayer. It felt like a curtain and behind that curtain lay a secret room, with a sculpture and burning myrrh. I felt grateful for this discovery and thanked Her. Again, Gurdjieff comes to mind: “If you do not have faith, act as if you do.” At least, devotion is an act of humbleness and modesty. And I feel like the mage, the druid, the necromancer and the sorcerer need more modesty and humbleness in general.

 

[Romolo]

December 23rd

This morning it snowed, unexpectedly. I decided to go outside with a tiny pot to catch seven snowflakes (I have read somewhere that snow that hasn’t touched the Earth is powerful), and as I was doing so I quickly found myself walking to the garden, where I put out new bird food, lit some myrrh and the outdoor candle and kneeled down under the young maple tree, where “the bottle” is dangling. By now the hymn is flowing freely from my mouth (today it sounds like a lullaby), no longer attached to me by its threads of words. My cold breath mixes with the smoke from the candle, which in turn casts a reflection inside the bottle. The snow falls on my hands which I hold cupped over the thick flame. It’s a synesthesia of sensations and elements. I feel privileged that I found a way—through magic—to access this mind space.

I possess a rare copy (in Italian) of Paracelso’s ”De humuncilis, libri sugli homunculi (de homunculis et monstris)”, a book so disgusting, misogynistic and homophobic that I wanted to burn it at first, but I never did and see, more than ten years after I bought it, it is still in my possession. It is right here, next to me on the couch, like an inanimate pet I never asked for.

I think I kept the book mostly because of that first sentence, which never really left me and goes as follows (I translate): “Man has to be considered split, but not because they are male or female, given that those two are one and the same, but because they are double, namely animal and human.” Paracelsus goes on to defend that, when a human being behaves like a dog, or like a wolf, he is, “in tutto” (in everything), a dog or a wolf. Not that he gives any proof, of course. That is the advantage of alchemy. Things exist when you name them, something is transformed in doing so, connections are made, and by their effect, the validity of the claim is tested.