Winter Rain

[Lucien6493]

Truth be told, I'm just and old witch...nothing less, nothing more. In the language of my Galician ancestors I would be called a cloud-walker. Nefelibata. Stories are the magick I tell, and most everything I know about my spiritual life I learned from the spirits and from the dead and from the ones I pray to. In other words, I couldn't tell you how I go about journeying between the worlds or how I call to the ones that I work with, and I don't really care because from where I'm standing magic is how life happens when I get out the way, and I like the liminality of that just fine. How I translate it into my day to day life in the world, how I live the work that I do so that I can relate to it in the first place is another matter. This is where stories come in. Language; enchantments; the green tongue of alchemy and James Joyce; the meta-languages of creativity, of ritual theater, of dream, of art, and of what's left of the shamanic traditions of our ancestors still retained in folk magic and in fairytales. But well, if you want to know a bit more about my understanding of magick apart from my practice, you might want to reference Alan Moore, Todd Siler, and Gregory Bateson, with a nod to Alan Chapman, but, you know...right loosely. I walk the betwixt and between, as real and as unreal as winter rain, until you get good and sopping wet.

 

[Morell]

Sounds like you're very natural.
Welcome to the forum.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

Truth be told, I'm just and old witch...nothing less, nothing more. In the language of my Galician ancestors I would be called a cloud-walker. Nefelibata. Stories are the magick I tell, and most everything I know about my spiritual life I learned from the spirits and from the dead and from the ones I pray to. In other words, I couldn't tell you how I go about journeying between the worlds or how I call to the ones that I work with, and I don't really care because from where I'm standing magic is how life happens when I get out the way, and I like the liminality of that just fine. How I translate it into my day to day life in the world, how I live the work that I do so that I can relate to it in the first place is another matter. This is where stories come in. Language; enchantments; the green tongue of alchemy and James Joyce; the meta-languages of creativity, of ritual theater, of dream, of art, and of what's left of the shamanic traditions of our ancestors still retained in folk magic and in fairytales. But well, if you want to know a bit more about my understanding of magick apart from my practice, you might want to reference Alan Moore, Todd Siler, and Gregory Bateson, with a nod to Alan Chapman, but, you know...right loosely. I walk the betwixt and between, as real and as unreal as winter rain, until you get good and sopping wet.

Welcome! I presume you've read Alan Moore's 'Fossil Angels' essay?

 

[Lucien6493]

Welcome! I presume you've read Alan Moore's 'Fossil Angels' essay?

Well, actually no. I'd never heard of Fossil Angels until you mentioned it yesterday. I am reading it now, and will probably end up reading it a few more times, as much to enjoy the way in which he plays with language as for any other reason. For me it comes down to keeping it real, which is what I think Moore is getting at. You just can't fake it, not in performative art, and not in magic either. If I want to work an audience, whether I'm showcasing ritual theater with the Neo-futurists or doing stand-up, or just go in for a bit of storytelling at an open mike, I have to feel it but without bleeding out all over the stage. I'm not in control anymore when the performance takes us and the synergy creates a sacred space of intricately structured vulnerabilities, and yet, of course, we are there together, riding the emotional energy of enchantment. A bit of Larping is always involved but you hold it lightly. I experience spirit work in much the same way, so when I read Promethea I felt a confluence there between what Moore was saying about the role and function of the imagination in reality construction and my own understanding of the creative process as a reflection of the soul's unfolding through time and its spaces, which in turn mirrors the Great Work itself, as itself.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

For me it comes down to keeping it real, which is what I think Moore is getting at.

Yes, definitely that. His final point is that Art and Magic (for him anyway) are two sides of the same thing. I am of the opinion that the mechanism for creativity is also the mechanism for magic, although I am still not certain how to relate them

 

[Ziran]

I couldn't tell you how I go about journeying between the worlds or how I call to the ones that I work with,

My vote? it's best left unsaid.

magic is how life happens when I get out the way

Agreed. Like syncopation?

In the language of my Galician ancestors I would be called a cloud-walker.

It's nice to meet you, cloud-walker.

 

[EresXO]

There’s a way of being described as “Genuine Pretending” in A commentary on the Zhuang Zi, ( of the same title by Hans-Georg Mueller and Paul D’ambrosio, that resonates with your comments on performance, art and magic. The author argues that genuine pretending is what we’re all doing, but doing it consciously is both therapeutically easing and empowering. I look forward to hearing more from your experiences and insights, Welcome!
Also a newcomer,
Leo