The Sphere of Protection: Phase 3

[ecosophia]

By now, I hope those of you who are following along have been practicing the Opening and Closing of the SoP daily for a couple of weeks and the Calling of Air for a week. (If you're just joining us now, you can find those here and here.) Now it's time to add in the second of the elemental phases, the Calling of Water. For the next week, you'll be practicing the Opening, the Calling of Air, the Calling of Water, and the Closing; then we go on to the remaining five elemental Callings. Why? First, because it's much easier to take it a step at a time; second, because it turns the process of learning the SoP into a process of initiation. 

If you're using divine names in this practice, you'll need one that's associated with the element of water. If you're using Judeo-Christian symbolism, the standard divine name to use is אל , AL, which is pronounced "Ell." In the Druid Revival traditions I work with, this element is associated with Hesus the chief of tree-spirits. If you work in a different theistic tradition, choose a relevant name from your tradition; if you don't, don't worry about it -- you can also invoke the element of water as is. The Calling of Water is done as described below: 

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First, perform the Opening phase of the Sphere of Protection, and then perform the complete Calling of Air, including both the invoking and the banishing aspects. 

Then face west. Using the first two fingers of your right hand, trace the triangle on the right, starting from the bottom point and going clockwise. Imagine that symbol drawn, just as shown here, in a line of blue flame or of blazing blue light. This is the invoking form of the symbol of water. 

Point to the center of the symbol and say an appropriate invocation. Here's the one I use when I'm practicing this ritual in a Druid context: "By the blue gate of the mighty waters and the salmon of wisdom in the sacred pool, and in the great name HESUS, I invoke the Water, its gods, its spirits, and its powers. May the powers of Water bless and protect me this day and always, and further my work. May my heart be instructed by the ways of nature." (Yes, you can use this one as written; you can also come up with one of your own. The SoP is flexible that way. The divine name, if you use one, should of course be vibrated; see the explanation in the post on the Calling of Air if you need a reminder of how this is done.)

As you finished the invocation, imagine as intensely as possible an ocean or a mighty lake reaching out west of you into the distance. See an evening scene in which the sunset shines above the waters. Make it look like autumn in the place where you live. Engage all your senses, so that you smell and feel and hear as well as see the imagery. Draw the energies of water into yourself. Take a little while at this, and then say, "I thank the powers of Water for their gifts."

Then trace the same symbol in the same place, but this time draw the triangle counterclockwise from the bottom. This is the banishing form of the symbol of water. It doesn't banish water -- it banishes other things with the help of water. Point at the center of the triangle and say words such as the following: "And with the help of the powers of Water, I banish from within me and around me and from all my doings all harmful influences and hostile magic, and every imbalance of the nature of Water. I banish these far from me." Spend a little while imagining every imbalance and unwanted influence being washed away by the waves and dissolved forever in the vastmess of the water. 

Finally, face the same way you faced in the Opening, and perform the Closing of the SoP.

Do this sequence daily for the next week or so. Notice the change in the energetic balance between this phase and the one you completed over the last week. 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Quick question: why is water introduced right after air? I'd imagine each of the four elements would correspond to a direction, but this seems to skip one, and teach them out of the order they fall if you turn one quarter circle at a time. Why is that?

[ecosophia]

That's correct -- the order you learn them is air, then water, then fire, then earth -- though as you'll see, once you get to fire it's done between air and water. The reason is that if you start invoking air, and then fire, you've got two active elements and no receptive elements, and that can be unbalancing. So you learn an active element, a passive element, another active element, and another passive element.

[(Anonymous)]

That makes sense. Thank you.

Autumn imagery

[(Anonymous)]

Curious about the use of autumn imagery for water. I’ve often used this imagery for air, particularly quaking aspens flutttering in the wind and the sea of yellow one experiences when walking through an aspen grove in the Fall. Breathing that in. Can you give any hints as to the association of autumn with the water element? Thanks.
Mike T

Re: Autumn imagery

[ecosophia]

That's standard Druid symbolism. The elements and the circle of the directions relate to the wheel of the year and to the cycle of the day as follows:

air - east - spring - morning
fire - south - summer - day
water - west - autumn - evening
eartth - north - winter - night

Re: Autumn imagery

[(Anonymous)]

Duh...that’s laid out in the books. Should’ve caught that. Have always used morning imagery for air and accidentally used afternoon imagery for fire, but have never used evening and night for water and earth. Will try this going forward

Re: Autumn imagery

[robertmathiesen]

In old traditional Western schemes of the cosmos, there are two different patterns for how the four elements line up with the four points of the compass. Each is as old as the other; each has its magical uses, depending on the approach to the cosmos you are taking as you do your magic.

The one our host gives here has celestial associations and is based on astrology. It seems to me that any magical tradition making considerable use of astrology (as our host is doing) would prefer this alignment.

The other one puts water (in the north) and earth (in the west), reversing their positions. It has terrestrial associations and is based on alchemy. It works with the oppositions between wet and dry, between cold and hot as the defining features of the four elements.

Begin, for example, with Fire in the south; fire is hot and dry. Change dry to wet, but leave hot unchanged, and you get Air. Then leave wet unchanged, but change hot to cold, and you get Water. Leave cold unchanged, but change wet to dry, and you get Earth. Leave dry unchanged, but change cold to hot, and you have circled back to Fire. So Fire(south) and Water(north) are opposite one another in the terrestrial circle, as are Earth (west) and Air (north). This progression (Fire-Air-Water-Earth) descends from the Empyrean to the Earth. Reverse it (Earth-Water-Air-Fire) and you ascend from Earth to the Empyrean. If, in a fallen cosmos, there is also fire under the Earth, then you can start your ascent from the Fire Below, just as you start your descent from the Fire Above.

Medieval world-maps are set up so that East is at the top, South to the viewer's right, West at the bottom, and North to the viewer's left. (Modern maps follow the same order of compass points, but put North at the top.) In such a map, ascent through the elements (F>E>W>A>F) entails clockwise--in the northern hemisphere, also sunwise--movement around the circle of the lands [Latin, orbis terrarum]; descent through the elements (F>A>W>E>F) entails counter-clockwise movement.

So there are two different circles, celestial and terrestrial, with Earth and Water switched in their places. Suppose these circles are made of cord. Start with either, and flip the positions of Earth and Water. As you do that, the cord changes from a circle into a (now incomplete) circle surrounding a cross, giving the primeval cosmogram of a cross within a circle: ⊕

My own natal chart has four Earth signs and one water sign, and my own temperament is distinctly melancholic, with a touch of phlegmatic. Curiously, I have found that the terrestrial pattern works far better for me than the celestial one when I do cast a circle. So I suspect that a person's natal chart will have considerable effect on which magical tradition(s) work best for that person. Here as everywhere, one size won't fit all.

Despite one's own temperament, one should take both patterns into account in one's practical work and one's theories of magic. Unsurprisingly, the Ancient and Medieval physicians do just that, relying on astrology and on alchemy alike.

Copy-paste error?

[(Anonymous)]

Imagine that symbol drawn, just as shown here, in a line of blue flame or of blazing blue light. This is the invoking form of the symbol of ???AIR???

Re: Copy-paste error?

[ecosophia]

Cut-and-paste error duly corrected; thank you.

Re: Copy-paste error?

[walt_f]

One more: "if you don't, don't worry about it -- you can also invoke the element of AIR as is"

Re: Copy-paste error?

[ecosophia]

Got it. Thanks.

[(Anonymous)]

My LRP-addled brain wants to associate Calling with invoking only and seems confused that we don't invoke each element in turn and then go back and banish each element. Just to make everything crystal clear: when we first perform the "complete Calling of Air" this includes doing both the invocation and the banishment of Air before moving on to do the invocation and then banishment of the next element etc etc, correct?

(There's another reason not to mix the LRP and SoP for those keeping score at home: side effects may include minor OCD when certain fundamental details are slightly different than what we're used to)

[ecosophia]

That's correct. You invoke air and, with its power, banish those things you want to banish; you then invoke another element, and do the same thing.

The LRP (and the broader Golden Dawn tradition to which it belongs) offers one very useful toolkit for doing magical work. The AODA/Universal Gnostic Church/Order of Modern Essenes/Order of Spiritual Alchemy system, to which the SoP belongs, offers another -- and you're right, they're emphatically not the same and don't do things in the same ways.

[fringewood]

This is a newbie question. Is the SOP performed (opening and closing) and then I would do a divinitory reading or ritual or do I open the SOP, do a ritual or reading, etc and then close the SOP?
Thank you!

[ecosophia]

You perform the whole thing, opening and closing, and then perform the meditation or divination. In a little while, after the whole SoP has been laid out, I'll explain how to combine it with some other bits of ceremony to make a good solid means of opening and closing ritual space.

Unwanted influences

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG

Thanks so much for this. I am still on the basic Opening/Closing and will wait to ensure there are no ill effects before adding elements. So far, so good which means I may, hopefully, finally be able to start a magical practice. With your advice I took many years off doing any type of "energy" work after a misadventure with some advanced yoga practices. I'm gonna keep taking it slow though.

For when I do start with the elements I'm curious about the banishing stage:

"Spend a little while imagining every imbalance and unwanted influence being" swept away by the winds / washed away by the water...at each banishing stage would I just imagine the same imbalances/influences being taken away repeatedly but in different ways? I can imagine that would be awesomely powerful when it's been practiced a while, like I'm surrendering all my issues to the elements one at a time.

Sorry if that's a daft question; I was wondering should it be a different sort of issue/imbalance for each element :-)

Thanks again, Morfran.

Re: Unwanted influences

[ecosophia]

It's not a daft question at all. You can do it either way; try both and see which one works best for you.

Deity Choice

[goatgodschild]

If you already used the name of a deity in the Opening, can you use it in this part as well? (In this case, the mother goddess is also the ocean goddess).

Re: Deity Choice

[ecosophia]

You can use the same names in both phases, yes.

[goatgodschild]

The response from Air has not been particularly strong yet, but the response from Water was extremely intense.