bibliomancy for a full moon with uranus...

young whales ds 'o8

"At this point in the work the ego and the unconscious have both dramatically changed.  The ego and the principle of consciousness it represents have gotten closer to the inner world of instinct and freedom....at the same time, the unconscious has moved closer to the world of consciousness by casting off its chaos and confusion and by allowing a certain level of harmony and order to affect it...its wildness and ferocity are now ordered by its relationship with the ego; the two are cooperating and entering into new depths of relationship..."  

(Jeffrey Raff, Jung and the Alchemical Imagination, p 111)

and for mars opposite uranus...

'naked man dancing' d sinclair '06

"Overtly sexual relationships are often being driven by something deeper, more fundamental. This has to do with the need to be held together as a cohesive personality, so that we do not easily fall apart with unbearable anxiety or depression, so that we can maintain reasonable self esteem, and so that we can withstand the usual fluctuations of life's successes and failures with reasonable equanimity, without excessive inflation or despair. I believe that the elusive bonding agent which is required here is what the alchemists referred to as the glutinum mundi."

(Lionel Corbett, The Alchemical Glutinum Mundi, in Fire in the Stone: The Alchemy of Desire, p 127)

more mercury retrograde...

from my paper journal:

June 29, 2007

Who wants to know about me? Want to hear a story - a story about a woman sitting at her desk writing? Writing and wondering about that story - what to write - what's the true story?

The Alchemical Psychologist says that all stories, all histories, are fictions. By the time we recall events from memory they've changed from travelling all those dark corridors in the mind.

Even the brightest minds can trick things around.

What's more, our perception of events is always coloured by our ways of perceiving - our thoughts and beliefs.

Coloured!

My mother always told me I had my father's duck-shit eyes. Imagine that. I've gone through most of my life seeing things through duck-shit eyes.

These days I prefer to think I'm looking out at the world through amber-flecked green or at the very least murky-pond...

My point is; no matter what story - its a fiction. I'll tell you! It might be beautiful, it could be dark and twisted, but it won't be the truth.

bibliomancy for mars in leo

'I hope he does' d sinclair all rights reserved '08

"...we need ethical behaviour, or social life becomes untenable. It does matter what we do, how we treat others; it is important to challenge corruption, to make a stand. It is not good enough to put it all down to fate and turn away. But at the same time, we have to understand the deep ground of oneness out of which we and others arise...." (Diana Durham, The Return of King Arthur, p 178)

the most important thing you need to learn about alchemy

At the risk of really flying the freak flag high, I want to talk about alchemy. Because I notice, with growing irritation, that the word gets bandied about a lot these days. It seems to be a stand in for the once-cool but now over used descriptive term fusion.

Its not just the metaphysics crowd - I see it now in general fiction and even in commercial use. There's a trend, too, of using 'alchemy' in the title of books that have nothing to do with the subject. 'Sexual Alchemy', 'the Alchemy of Policy Making', 'Editorial Alchemy' 'Garden Alchemy' etc. (I'm rolling my eyes, if you can picture that)

And just lately there's been some discussion, in other parts of the blogoshpere, about alchemy and the practice of 'turning crap into gold', to which I occasionally pipe up in defence of the Work and it not involving any actual fecal matter, that I've ever heard of.

Too literal, I say, excuse me but alchemy is all metaphor and allegory and mystery-with-a-capital-M. No pooh, if you please.

Oh I know they are not talking about real shit either - its the flippancy that bothers me (hence my flippant tone now).

There's a general idea circulating about Alchemy that it involves madly and magically transforming things into gold. The archetypal Alchemist is an old man in a pointy hat, long white beard and dark robes, labouring to produce the impossible. An image arcane and laughable at once. Not quite a snake-oil merchant, but not far off.

Oh and the other idea is that alchemy is a long-dead science harking back to the reformation era origins of chemistry and other sciences. Which, OK, is sort of true, but is still only a part of the picture.

Truth told, I only have part of the picture myself, and I've been studying alchemy for about four years now. Its not a long time - men such as Isaac Newton and Carl Jung dedicated decades of their lives to it, so I am even lower than an apprentice.

Having been drawn to alchemy on a quest for insight into my own restlessness and dissatisfaction as a mother and woman in a world that often appears to appreciate neither - I've worked my way through many books and classes and performed my nigredo in drawing and other creative works and my life as a whole.

Along the way I've had a lot of arguments with sixty-something Freemasons, become frustrated with asking questions to which answers never came (or which I missed entirely); laughed at obscure, strange old texts (as I'm certain they were meant to be laughed at) written by Fraters with all-too-obvious Latin pseudonyms; puzzled over quantum mechanics and laws of the universe; and got my hands and face dirty grinding up antimony in the laboratory of two of the coolest people I've ever met, real alchemists.

I've learned meditation, astrology, qabala, sacred geometry, sacred languages - a plethora of sacred things. I've learned and relearned the meaning of the word esoteric and to stop talking, stop listening and believing my own thoughts - to stay still, and to contain myself. I learned the true meaning of disipline.

Most of all, though, I learned to embrace all things as being perfect according to their own nature.

And that's only the beginning of Alchemy as I understand it.

Yeah, its frustrating to see it all so trivialised, and more so because - and this is it, the most important thing - whatever anyone may think alchemy is they are right.

five ways to live soulfully

'because i can' all rights reserved d sinclair '08

Why are we always striving for improvement - to fix things about ourselves and our lives? Imagine what it would be like to fully accept the way things are with your self and your life, whatever your current state of affairs.

Here are five simple practices that are about soulful living - that is, being at peace with the present and with yourself.

1. Give yourself more fully to the little things that you do everyday - the dishes, making the bed, cooking meals; your daily tasks - even if you can't stand doing them anymore. Especially if you're tired of doing them. Do these things without thinking, without struggle and with care - paying attention to the doing and not the story of needing to do them. Practice it, one thing at a time.

This is your life and everything in it is important because each part is part of you.

2. Forgive yourself for something. Pay attention to that which you find hard to accept about yourself - if you want thin thighs, but you continue to have the thighs you have - forgive yourself for that; if you believe you should be kinder but find yourself sniping anyway, give yourself a break. Do this as often as you can.

Its OK to be who you are, exactly as you are.

3. Notice what's in your life. Look around where you are right now - take it all in. You created this scene, these people, things, experiences. Breathe it in and be grateful. See that your choices have brought you here and let go of ideas of 'good' or 'bad' about those choices. Things are as they are, no more and no less - as they should be.

However things are, you can change all of it if you want to, one choice at a time. But you don't have to.

4. Listen to yourself. Really listen to the way you speak - to others, about yourself, about others, about everything. Listen to your thoughts too. Your words are telling. What are you saying? All the answers you could ever need are coming out of your own mouth.

Your words are your witness. Love them or be silent.


5. Give yourself what you want from others. Whatever it is you think anyone else can give you, and won't, give to yourself. Allow yourself to have all the pleasure and kindness you desire.

You want what you want, so have it. Go all the way with it and watch what happens.

bibliomancy, synchronicity and flying

"... only love is real. Nothing else actually exists. If a person behaves unlovingly, then, that means that, regardless of their negativity - anger or whatever - their behavior was derived from fear and doesn't actually exist. They're hallucinating. You forgive them, then, because there's nothing to forgive. Forgiveness is a discernment between what is real and what is not real."

(Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love)

Do you remember the thrill of your first flight on a jet airplane? Taking off feels strange but exciting - this huge amazing machine has to leave the ground, the force of which pushes you back into your seat. It seems impossible.

You lean forward and look through the steamy little window watching things get smaller and bigger at the same time. Land below and sky above, it becomes clear that there is more happening in life than you pay attention to in the linear, ordinary course of a day.

Then comes the rocking and shaking and shuddering - can this be happening? Just as you gained faith in flight it turns out it can't be sustained after all. It seems only moments ago you were shown the emergency procedure, and remember absolutely none of it.

You grip the armrests. Imagine crashing to the ground, everything up in flames. Plunging deep into the sea. Contemplate all the things you've never done, the things you've done and wish you hadn't - maybe you pray. This is it.

Then a reassuring voice tells you the aircraft is experiencing 'normal air turbulence' which will pass shortly, and asks you to please remain seated and safety-belted.

Oh Right! (you're thinking) You try to breathe slow and deep and sit very very still.

And it does pass. Before you know it 'turbulence' is no big deal, after all, flying is safer than driving.

Isn't it?

I'm sure you can see where this is heading by now - although possibly this is not a metaphor that truly fits - life can be like that first plane ride.

Thrilling, I say, seemingly impossible; containing moments that make you wonder why you ever got on and others where you can see the whole deal laid out like a blanket.

Actually, the further you travel the more connections are made and others missed entirely causing you to sit a while. Still, knowing its not likely that you'll end up in the wrong place, even if your baggage goes astray, you stay on the trip.

This week has been one of those weeks - connections made, take-off-thrills and long airless moments which left me like a virgin passenger without a window seat. But there was no getting off - and there was no forgetting that this was a journey that couldn't be done by car.

I managed to upset a few people and attract the anger and criticism of some more. I had some career breakthroughs via a chance meetings, and was delighted to have an old friend appear from nowhere. A series of small but important assurances - a power bill that was ten times less than I thought it would be, a check in the post from something I overpaid, a rebate from the telephone company that put me on hold so often earlier in the month. These showed me that my way is clear and my ticket is paid.

And came the realisation that there's no good lying to myself about certain relationships and emotions - just as there's damage to be done by denying the part I play in creating particular circumstances.

Yeah, there's fear, ego and error - but at the end of the day I've got to believe it was my choice to get on this plane, so its over to the pilot to get me there. Come what may, I'm on it until it lands and have to let the expert in charge handle what I have no control of. Believe.

Love will always find the way home.

bibliomancy for a Jupiter-Pluto conjunction

this is taken from 'Fire in the Stone, the Alchemy of Desire':

"I see our task now to be that of looking yet again to our own shadows. Though I would not encourage us simply to get on the bandwagon of the collective, victim-identified child, I also do not believe we can ignore its psychological reality. When we look simply at the shadow of this child, it is easy to dismiss it. What we really need is an awareness of the shadow of shadow awareness."

(Patricia Berry - Reductionism/Finalism and the Child)

bibliomancy for space clearing

"...we take it for granted that the language of true imagination is made up of symbols, which partake of both the perceptions and experiences of the already lived life and the emergent capacities of imagination..."

(SHERRY SALMAN, "TRUE IMAGINATION" SPRING 74)

As within, so without. Tuesdays are always high energy days for me, even with Mars Retrograde in Cancer (as the warrior of the sky is now). Having realised I'm a bit clogged creatively, I've decided that some serious space clearing is called for - the children's rooms in particular (not that I'll go anywhere near the room of my fourteen year old!).

Space clearing always brings about miracles for me, so here goes.

my god, phobia

"I'm moved by another intention: to warn. And warning, too, belongs to the negredo, for it speaks with the voice of the raven, foretelling dire happenings that may result from the seduction of black."

(James Hillman)

Phobia is described by most dictionaries as any kind of fear or dread, sometimes irrational, but as mostly implying strong aversion and morbid hatred. Its a dark idea, as far as ordinary human emotion goes, but if we have it, then we need it.

A cursory glance into the etymology of the word - and I can't claim to understand any concept without knowing its origins and essence - reveals its roots, or rather wings, in phobos - flight.

This, to my mind, points towards a mythical and therefore primordial style of fear - something that defies simple rationality and goes further and higher into the realm of the Gods. Its not just 'being afraid of spiders' its a deep-seated primal and polar postion against the very 'spiderness' of life itself.

In a pantheistic world view Phobia is an archetype and part of the larger story we're all subject to in our mortal human lives. More than that, the particular form or manifestation that phobia takes brings definition and becomes a pre-condition for action, behaviour and event. Phobia is an identity or role to be played out.

Suffice to say that if Phobia is true to its own shape, then to say that someone has a phobia is allopathic and untidy - its truer to say phobia has that someone. One is phobic.

So, this archetype, this force, Phobia - a character in its own right - is lived into experience in epic journeys and returns and battles in varied ways. Perhaps as a 'shadow' persona or villain that must be violently overcome; an anti-hero who's pain has entered, like all things divine, via a wound or trauma; a beautiful but divided soul to be healed and integrated; a healer; an outcast, lone-wolf or hermit. Or as the unclaimed parts of hero's, saviours, kings and queens. Encounters with giant insects, reptilian devouring creatures, vile odours, dark green creeping decay. Episodes of falling into dangerous hidden places, being buried and confined or abandoned to the dangers of nature.

Its ancestry in flight also places phobia in the realm of air - pneuma - and comes cawing and circling from above; birds of prey; carrion scavengers; open exposure to vast empty spaces; searing light and blindness. Its pneumatic nature calls attention to its language and ability to create out of its images; warlocks and witches and their winged messengers appear; uncanny abilities of mind-reading and control; repetitive destructive thoughts and voices calling and singing for death.

Just as phobia serves the narrative, phobia is served by the narrative - the story of phobia keeps the archetype in power. A strange irony (poetry?)- while phobia is defined and contained, it breaks free, provokes adrenaline-surged slow motion corridor runnning and lung-burning screams, and no escape. It will always fly faster.

thought of the heart

"Speech is not of the tongue, but of the heart. The tongue is merely the instrument with which one speaks. He who is dumb is dumb in his heart, not in his tongue... as you speak, so is your heart." PARACELCUS