Magic Monday

[ecosophia]

It's getting on for midnight as I type this, so here we go with a new Magic Monday. This week's classic of Western occultism, since I've been indulging in Ross Nichols' poetry of late, is The Cosmic Shape, published in 1946, which contains his brilliant essay "An Examination of Creative Myth," which discusses the need for nature-myth and ritual as a counterbalance to the artificialities of modern life, and his related Arthurisn poem-cycle "The Cosmic Legend," as well as other poems of his and his fellow poet James Kirkup. He clearly discussed these ideas with his good friend Gerald Gardner; those ideas ended up playing a central role in the creation of Wicca as well as the transformations of 20th-century Druidry. Here's a bit from "The Cosmic Legend": 

I have made my ceremonies; the crisis
comes. None may reproduce, no water flow,
until the sword is from its sheath pulled.
Only I, the medicine-man Gawain, instructing 
at midnight Galahad, the pure one of 
spring -- only I can save you, faithless 
with the fallen leaf. I prove to you,
O my dead people, once again that
I alone am your strength.

In the first ray beating touching on the centre altar-stone
to the eye prepared at vigil-end, the vessel of the sun,
cup and heart, to Galahad. 

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With that said, have at it!

***This Magic Monday is now closed -- and yes, this means you.  See you next week!*** 

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Comments

[(Anonymous)]

There's something I've been wondering about for a while, which has come up recently and indeed already in these very comments: the meaning of the color black. The confusion I have is between its association with negative energy you talk about and it's status, as far as I've learned, as a color of [i]life[/i] in Kemet, which after all even means "The Black Land" (after the fertile soil brought by the Nile and in contrast to the desert). Now, for people who aren't working with any traditions from there but are working with traditions in line with what you commonly state, I expect that doesn't matter. I, though, while I have not felt it good to dive [i]deep[/i] into magic, am I think significantly more on the path of the mystic than I am on either of the other paths in your division, and specifically in a religious relationship with a pair of Kemetic deities. I have thus wondered what black would be for me were I to raise my practice to a level where it became important; I imagine this question likely also has broader applications to other aspects of religions or traditions that given certain things within those contexts significantly different meanings than they are more generally given.
Or is there some subtlety I'm missing, or some knowledge I lack, that the question is not correct?

Reese

[ecosophia]

Setting aside the linguistic issue, in ancient Egyptian ritual practice, how was the color black used? That would probably be your best guide.

[dfr1973]

I'll chime in here, for what it may be worth. I was taught (American Wiccan) that while black is used to curse/hex, it is also useful in banishing specific things and setting wards for protection. Being a majority-military coven, we used the analogy to a claymore mine and triple-strand standard concertina wire perimeter (with tangle-foot, of course), with the understanding that black is very powerful, and can potentially blow up in your face or cut you deeply if you were not meticulously careful when using it.

(for the record, our high priestess was a VietNam vet, and the high priest jumped into Grenada as part of the 82nd. While we joked about it, we never actually smudged with CS gas.)

color black

[(Anonymous)]

Black can also symbolize mystery. Also note, the pupil of the eye is black.

Re: color black

[ecosophia]

I don't recommend burning the pupil of your eye. ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks, all of you!

Reese