bibliomancy to make amends

"Wisdom, also known as Sophia, is described in the Old Testament as she who protects and inspires life into her children (Eccl 4; 12-14), the tree of life (Proverbs 3:17), holy, one, gentle, eloquent, active, steadfast, unspotted mirror of God's goodness, before the light, reaching from end to end mightily and ordering all things sweetly, and no evil can overcome her."

(McNeely, Mercury Rising, Women Evil and the Trickster Gods p129)

bibliomancy, mischief and the anatomy of a dream

"Hermes...is not the source of light, as the sun is, but rather the source of this source. He also begot the moon-like and dark Pan. His world originates before sunrise, and as the source of his world he can only be the one who himself allows a source of illumination to originate in the outpouring of souls...

...in the prehistoric depths of the life-source, light and its mirror are begotten simultaneously; there as great Greek philosophers also knew, the source of light and the source of soul are one and the same..." (Kerenyi, Hermes p144)

There's a lot to be learned from venturing forth into the blogger-sphere. One Can Not, for example, post comments about misfortunes to one's cat on the blog of a cat lover - even with the most light-hearted intentions.

Really.

No seriously, I'm trying to lighten up, and step out from under my rock at last. And the story about my two cats called Arkie is funny, and has a happy ending. Well, apart from the bit where I accidentally killed the first cat, and reversed over the second one also completely by accident.

So, OK I'm not good with pets - this is something I'm working through.


Meanwhile I'm getting the picture that my style isn't going to have a 'typical' audience, and that being a virtual stranger just won't do.

And having said that, I see how things here could be less cryptic - and so (da da daah - *cough*) I set about explaining myself.

As far as bibliomancy goes I tend not to 'interpret' but rather to 'analogise'.

It is a form of divination and there's the temptation to rant on about possible manifestations of, say, the current transit of Mercury through Aquarius and occurrences like sudden (a trait of all things Aquarian) illuminations (Mercury ruling the mind) that come from venturing forth into community (also an Aquarian thing).

Or the odd little synchronicity involving technology (double ditto). The urge to express the soul's eccentricities; perhaps play a few tricks, Hermes-like.

But no, I prefer the moonlight and mystery and the possibility a passage points to. The act of defining is too orderly and interpretation is, to my mind, heroic - solar. I'm blinded by the light.

So I mostly ignore the quote I'm lead (oops I mean led) to and write my lived experience, knowing that there's a correlation and that all will be revealed - like undoing an origami crane. (There! that's how it started - that's how it became!).

If you interpret a dream, which is not far removed from divination, its intelligence is in danger of disolving - of being melted down and remade by daylight meaning and definition. That horse, no longer a horse but a sex-act; the snake a phallus - every character a stand-in for something else.

Too literal! A dream's lunar, night-world images - frightening, arousing and confusing - are the life lived by the deep unconscious mind.

A deeper, darker approach to a dream or a mystery is called for.

So lamp in hand we can ask - what does this image, this scene, this passage show me? What does it want?

Let it come to you.

Watch, wait - allow - and exactly what you need to know will turn up.

Try it. Take a dream or the above 'bibliomancy' and instead of penetrating it, let understanding surface. Leave 'symbols' out of it and get in touch with the nature of each image. A horse is still a horse - and its horse-ness. 'The source of light' is what it is - and its light-ness, its origin and its destination.

Yes, in the spirit of 'lightening up' - I'm willing to see things differently - if you have a dream you are yet to understand, perhaps this is exactly the bit of mischief you've needed to show up - maybe I can shine something on it after all - let me know, I'm all yours.

bibliomancy for venus in aquarius

"The Cloudless Sky.

The sun is shining on you,
bright and clear
in a cloudless sky.
Everything is going as you wish."

(100 Poems of the Goddess, The Kuan Yin Oracle)

Well, this is more optimistic than I thought possible. I almost overlooked this transit on account of all the Saturn activity - teeth and bone and joint issues abound in my family and among friends, not to mention a general heaviness in myself.

Alright then, Saturn rules Aquarius, so it fits.

I've been contemplating what it means to 'build community' (one of Aquarius' rulerships) and the wider world. There's a strong pull towards whatever is 'out there' as opposed to hiding away here at home behind my computer screen.

As mentioned casually to a friend - and not for the first time lately - 'I've been living under a rock for far too long'.

Its a big rock and quite a burden, not to mention the kind of insect-life one attracts from under here. And having dropped my sense of humour somewhere in the dirty darkness I seem incapable of 'lightening up'.

Darn. I've heard of the 'wrong side of the tracks' but it looks like I'm on the wrong side of the rock.

I want to be on top.

So I ask you, what does it take? You're all 'out there' - am I missing anything? Is this idea of 'community' one of those ideas, like marriage and formal education that are theoretically sound but in general practice rather, er unsound? Is it a fantasy?

Oh, don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that marriage and education are fantasies, only that our stories around them can be detrimental to our mental health. (ok, MY mental health, I'm sure yours is fine)

So is 'community' another monotheistic model for lived experience that will bring me to grief - or am I looking for reasons to keep hauling like Atlas indefinitely?

There is an argument, quite a scientific one if you view Quantum Mechanics as science - that separation is an illusion. So we aren't individuals, however much our egos tell us we bloodywellare, and creating groups of individuals seems to me like creating kind of a communal ego. More separation, more fear and more trouble.

As a child it bothered me somewhat that there are such things as countries and nations and borders. We all live here on this one world together - part of it - we're all the same aren't we? I'd think to myself (yes I knew better than to say it outloud) that there was a Big Mistake.

My mother should have put me to bed instead of in the bouncy chair in front of the telly that day they walked on the moon - the day they showed us we're a living ball hanging in space.

Hm. Where was I going with this?

I'm really getting to the point of no return - separation is an illusion, as is the darn rock I keep referring to (but not the one we live on and are in fact a part of). There isn't anything 'out there' that isn't going on 'in here'.

All at once, actually, inside and out, in the large and little things that happen each day, each moment.

Time and space as we know them are changing - our linear model won't fit with our expanding world view and concurrent shrinking technology. We're learning to see beyond what we think is happening to what the other possibilites are.

Its too easy as people locked into our daily routines to fall deep into the Saturnine trap of 'not enough', that is, disconnection and immobilisation by the fear of scarcity, of inadequacy and failure. Turning away from another true state of things.

Sure, such a thing as scarcity does exist - limits exist, boundaries, form, borders and egos exist for real reasons - but the other truth is that we are limitless, we are all made of the same stuff and that the biggest thing and the smallest thing are exactly the same.

Its not one or the other, its both.

So there's no need for me to go anywhere to commune - if you are somewhere dancing, so am I. If you are somewhere making love, so are we all. I can sit right here at my desk, and lifetimes of experience and understanding are delivered to me instantly.

Of course, should I venture past my front door, unlock the gate, take myself out and actually have some fun I can only be doing the world some good - right?

That's no light-weight idea.

bibliomancy for a lunar eclipse

"...for Eskimos, when one falls ill, one takes a new name, a new diseased personality. To get over a disease, one must quite literally 'get over' it by transcending, that is, by dying. The only hope for cure lies in the death of the ill personality. Health requires death.." (HILLMAN)

freedom, writing and passion fruit

This past weekend someone asked me 'what do you write?'.

After an initial moment of embarrassment I said I write poetry 'and other poetic things', but was lost describing what I really write. I stuttered something about also drawing and being allowed 'to be really bad at it'.

Nothing like positive self talk.

But there was a time - more like a moment - when I told others I do 'textual anatomy'. I'm not sure how that translates to what I'm doing now, though, however gorgeous the sound of it.

Textual. Anatomy. Its writing and drawing together, poetic-like. It has a body and soul.

But is it worthy of an audience? And what is it all about anyway?

An email that blared its message to me yesterday reminded me that if I want my blog to be noticed I ought to be writing content my 'target audience' wants to read.

The marketer in me bristles at this, picks fights with my inner artist who in turn declares 'marketing matching principles' to be a load of creativity-stifling dogma.

'Write the story you want to write, not the one they want to read' comes to mind - sage advice from a well known author - nose-thumbing any imaginary group of people 'out there'.

I want an audience, a subscriber list, a following. I care about the people who read this - readers. You. So it looks like its time to define things here a little more clearly. Here goes:

I write about alchemy, myth, archetype and astrology. I write about how I see the world around me, the metaphors - the poetry - of life. I write about psychology as Hillman' sees it - an 'ology' of psyche - of soul.

Writing, for me, is like a relationship - it changes me, challenges me. I grow with it, and it grows with me.

Drawing is different, it comes from another place in me and keeps me honest. I know I can't draw and I don't mind. Its like I have no 'drawing ego' - no attachment to how my drawings 'turn out'. I don't have to think. What I see with my heart goes on the page without censorship or judgement.

I put the drawings and writings together because they are meant to be together. That's what I do; that's what's going on here.

So - what is 'bibliomancy'?

I started 'bibliomancy' as a means of inspiration some time ago. With something on my mind I choose a book from the pile, open it at random and without fail something meaningful falls off the page. Of course all the books in my pile are full of 'meaningful' in some form or another. But what happens for me here is relevant, divinatory, angelic.

And synchronicitous. Sometimes cryptic, always mysterious - above all requiring a stretch of the imagination and a mind open to new ways of seeing things.

This week life has shown me how free I am now to be who I am and let go of outdated ideas of how to relate to the world - in not so subtle ways. Events are telling me that there's support for me to carry on doing what I do and that I can expect good things to continue to flow.

My last post concerning the eclipse and taking care of the junk in my life. Getting into a space of allowing good to flow preceded a miracle and a spray of smaller gifts - free things that fell into my hands. Things that give me freedom, time, money, space and clarity.

Not least of these, I notice now, is the vine growing over the fence. It was here when we moved into the house a year ago - the only thing growing aside from two neat and tidy patches of lawn, front and back.

Through winter the vine crept along the fence at the side of the house, hidden from view, originating next door. It posed a contrast - a steel sheet fencing and minimal concrete wall against this unruly, lush, shiny leafy creature.

Spring sprung large white flowers with deep purple centers and it sprouted curly feelers everywhere. I worried that the drought would destroy it - such an impossible task to make fruit with so little sustenance. How could that happen?

Now its a dark green jungle with passion fruits dropping out of their hiding places onto the ground. Each one is a surprise to me and a message that life is abundant - that even without faith, even without intent - with nothing at all from me - from dark and unexpected places - beautiful things grow.

This is who I am and this is what I write.

bibliomancy for a solar eclipse in aquarius

"This means you have free will to do as you wish and that I make your will Mine, through unconditional love.

Now for My Will to be yours, you would have to do the same.

First you would have to know it. Second, you would have to accept it. Third, you would have to praise it. Fourth, you would have to love it. Finally, you would have to call it your own." (NEAL DONALD WALSH, CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD)

A full lunar cycle has passed since I made the decision not to 'de-clutter' and 'space clear' but to revision my clutter and junk - to find out why I have it.

The phrase I made my mantra 'I have everything I need, and nothing I don't' sustained me through an extraordinary period of self-examination to what now feels like true self-acceptance.

I found, I still do find, that the idea that there are parts of the psyche that are unacceptable and unlovable - untenable. I don't want to discard and reject and abandon and throw away anything that's part of me. I may be getting rid of the thing that makes me whole.

Today I realise that I can still love and accept myself and take care of the trash - the debris and natural waste that is a by-product of life and needs to be dealt with before it starts stinking and causing disease.

I thought I'd learned to diferentiate between the real waste that can be carefully dealt with and stuff that's just someone else's imaginary crap left to rot where it has no business.

And I found good reasons for denial - to go on pretending the accumulated rubbish pile doesn't stink - there's no rubbish, what rubbish?? (That which we give attention to grows, after all - so no looking). Or, to yell at someone - whoever is responsible, dammit - to 'come and clean this shit up!'; huff and puff about it and stomp around about 'how unfair'.

After a while, it has to be realised, there's just no getting around it - all the clutter that I can see needs to put where it belongs. And I have to do that, too.

So, while cleaning the house today, clearing space, enjoying the beauty of crisp sheets, muck-free floors, bathrooms and clear windows - I'm restoring order where I can; taking care of the dirt that belongs to me, and doing what I can with what 'isn't mine' to deal with.

I can see that this is my house, my home, my life and my mess to work on. Some of the mess is good.

The pile of toys over there - that's not crap, that's where children play.

The chaos on my desk, piles of drawings, half-used oil sticks, books and bits and pieces - I use those. I like it like this.

I admit the box of recycling under the sink threatens to overwhelm the sanctity of the kitchen at times. I sometimes forget to put out the wheely bin. I have plans to start composting.

Overall there is peace in my home, there is light and love and laughter.

Yes I let others walk their mud and grease through my house - I haven't protected against those who walk in dog-do. There it is around the skirting boards; under the sofa; finger-printed onto walls at man height; accumulated into grime over time, undealt with, disowned and mysterious. The usual methods of mopping up don't seem to work. What do I do with it - this crap I think of as 'not mine'?

Maybe there's gold in it, says the Alchemist in me.

Maybe. Can anything turn to gold if I don't love it, praise it, thank it, forgive it's presence, see it as perfect? Can I own it? Maybe not. I guess I have washing to do.

Meanwhile, I'm called to choose more wisely which boots will cross the threshold - because if I let them in, well. You get the picture.

I'm not sure yet how any of this relates to the solar eclipse tomorrow - only that events of the past 24 hours have turned up something that stinks and that I've had to push up my sleeves and clean up, and that feels good. (usually these bibliomancy posts contain answers that are self-evident after the fact)

Eclipses usually 're-set' things, and give a boost of energy where its most needed. Perhaps looked at where there's work to do, what can be loved more, what is unnecessarily problematized, and clearing out the things - the natural byproducts - that have been blocking the way, there'll be a renewal of something else.

Something really pure.

mercurial blessings

'kind stranger' d sinclair 2008 all rights reserved

"Necessity knows no magic formulae- they are all left to chance. If love is to be unforgettable, fortuities must immediately start fluttering down to it like birds to Francis of Assisi's shoulder." (Milan Kundera)

There are times when Mercury's tricks can bring confirmation that all of life is - in fact - entirely miraculous.

Yesterday my car battery died without warning just as I needed to leave the car wash bay with a queue of vehicles waiting behind me, a baby in the back seat and sweltering heat outside.

My immediate thought - right after the shock of yet another 'power failure' - was to call my self-proclaimed Lone Ranger (aka the Rigger) for help - followed by the thought that he was more likely to ride off into the sunset than come to the rescue.

I sat doing breathing exercises and calming myself and within moments a kind gentleman appeared and asked if he could help. An hour later the problem was entirely rectified, my car fitted with a new battery. Better than ever. (the Lone Ranger even showed up in his Silver V6, paying for everything, shaking hands, playing with the baby before taking the sunset route)

Mercury - Hermes - is a son of Zeus. Fortune, as Zeus would bestow, is the father of chance, opportunity and luck and are an integral part of the myth - but we are too eager to problematise, to see theft and tricks and deceptions where there are openings and blessings.

The einfalle generousity of a stranger - if one can relate to the presence of such grace as 'strange' - and the unexpected reversal of a usually elusive character - are affirmations of a benevolent mercurial force in the world.

And, the event served to remind me that 'owning my stuff' and taking responsibility for the choices made - stuff ups - that have brought me to this place is a fine thing - and that ownership includes the good stuff too.