What Are You Even Doing?

 Hello, loyal blog followers. It’s been a while since I’ve posted here. I hope you are well. I’ve been pretty good but I have neglected this blog. Life gets crazy with all the responsibilities that come up and take priority over other things in life. My magical and spiritual practice in some ways has taken a back seat to keeping up with my day job, my volunteer responsibilities, and family.  

Or, more accurately, ritual has taken backseat. Magic has not left the fore of my mind. I think and study and pray every day. Sometimes that can make me feel like I've lost a thread or that I'm not doing enough but we learn the lessons we are supposed to learn. I have not been doing nothing, I just don't have a list of mind-blowing, fireworks level magical results to report. Perhaps an apt metaphor would be the slow seeping of water from the ground to fill a valley to make a lake. At any one moment there is imperceptible movement but step back and the results are vast. 

What I have been doing is working on a practice that fits my everyday life. I don't have a ritual space and I don't have a ton of solitary time to dedicate to practice. The winter of 2023 into 2024 was a little difficult for me for a variety of reasons and a few projects got put down and have yet to be picked back up. I am going to get back to the original intent of this blog and use it as a way to stay motivated to do stuff so that I have something to report to you. I am feeling like I am getting back into a headspace in which long form writing is not a wholly daunting prospect. 

And, as I think about it all now and write about it I am coming to realize that I have a lot more to talk about than I thought. Making a practice part of everyday life tends to make the practice melt into the fabric of routine to the point it almost disappears. 

My study of the Mansions of the Moon has led me through new vistas with ideas that may or may not bear fruit. Here are some of the proverbial irons in the fire:

• I am slightly more than 10% done with making a set of cards for the Mansions of the Moon similar to my Decans deck and tarot deck. My goal is to complete 56 images, a beneficial and a wrathful image for each Mansion. I have 6 done. At this rate, however, Lord only knows how long it will take to finish. 
• The divination system, Zoroastor's Telescope, features the spirit names of the Mansions of the Moon very prominently and so I've been looking into it. I am most of the way through making a set of the tiles to be able to practice the system. 
• Similarly, the Faustian grimoire Magia Naturalis et Innaturalis also features the Mansion spirits. Are these important to my study or were the names simply used without context? 
• I have a bunch of incense ingredients gathered to make incenses specific to each of the Mansions but have not yet worked out the formulas. My goal is to make cones using make powder. 
• I still want to develop "mini-rites" for each of the Mansions based on the rites in the Picatrix and my own divination. My experiments have not gone well so far but it remains a goal. Perhaps I will write about the failures and the developments as they happen.
• I need to do more writing about the Mansions in general. I have years of research and practice churning to get out of me. That will be another important function of this blog; a place to practice and work out ideas that is easy and not so formal.  
• For all my study of the Mansions and congress with their spirits I have precious few actual talismans. This is an areas ripe for experimentation. 

And this is just off the top of my head. Undoubtedly, more things will come up as my study progresses. I am excited that I am in a place again in which I am able to come back to it and talk about it.  

Just remember, fellow magician, magic is something you are, not something you do. Even in fallow times magic is within you and alive.