Maebius Musings

Over on Nettle’s Blog, a friend of mine Meme asked a few questions about her Definition of Magic. Here’s my thoughts, with his permission. These answers were written up without reading Nettle’s answers, though there does appear to be a good deal of similarity. Great minds, and all that, perhaps… I will use the term Magick, with a K, to mean what seems to be the implied concept of esoteric alteration of the universe through directed willpower, which is what Meme appears to be asking about. This differs slightly from my own definition, so my answers may reflect that difference.

Sorry for getting this post up so late. We went camping and I was off work a few days, so was online less than usual to do bloggy-type stuff lately. Most of this was written in notebook and later transcribed to e-format here.

1) Do you believe in chance? Does the fundamental nature of the universe include chaos and randomness? If so, how do you distinguish between answers to “prayer” and random occurrences?

I do believe in chance, and the answer of discerning the difference between prayer and chance boils down to awareness and internalized perception. Since Magick to me is not so much the action and result-based fulfillment of prayer, and is more the personal awareness of potentials, even random chance holds magick, like how one of those magic-eye images appear jumbled, but if looked at differently, may contain a hidden image/message. Chaos in it’s truest form IS the magick; that unbounded potential for anything to happen. Thus, as Einstein has been quoted, “Everything is a miracle, or nothing is”, and I prefer to choose the inclusive side of things.

2) What, if anything, makes your version of magick different than a christian who prays to god? Is it only a difference in who you’re supplicating? Would you say that Christians everywhere are practicing magick then?

My magick is not so much spellcasting or energy manipulation, and haven’t gotten a good definition of THAT type of working myself yet. however, I understand many people ascribe such workings as “Magick”. In that regard, I do think that most devout christians (my younger self included) practice a form of magick if defined as seeking change from a Higher Authority in their lives. Myself, I do not count that as magic, and prayer is a completely different beast than the more esoteric concept of my Magick. Not saying prayer serves no purpose, of course. Creating a pot-roast on the stove, and slapping cold meat between bread both make food to sustain our lives, but are not “cooking”, if that analogy helps, yet both provide foodstuffs in different ways.

3) If magick consists of praying or asking for intercession, why then all the other trappings? Why the ceremonies and meetings and dress and altars? Is it to put you in a state of mind to ask properly? Is it to put the intercessionary being in the proper mood? If so, why do you think you need to approach your higher power in a certain mindset or vice-versa?

Going with the definition of magic as a ritual, I ask why catholic Mass, or other liturgical trappings are useful? I think (personally) the whole showmanship aspect is more important to get your own mind “in the zone”, but are ultimately for the public. Such rituals if done in a group help to unify the group dynamics, and if done in a solitary manner simply help the ‘performer’ concentrate on the task at hand and direcct energy in a more efficient manner. For such circle-work, having the tools and trappings is simply more efficient, such as using a hammer instead of a rock to drive nails. Additionally, it shows a certain level of respect and commitment to the Otherbeing, if you use things they might like, similar to me visiting a friend to ask a favor, and bringing a bottle of wine or a freshly baked cake. The cake is not so much a “bribe” as it is a gesture of good-will or ‘bartering of energies‘, if that makes sense.

4) In your experience and estimation: Can magick produce any reproducible result? Is there any working or spell or prayer that always results in the same effect?

This one is tough, but my first instinct would be to say “no”. Magick as it seems defined here is a personal change or perception. Casting a healing spell may help the person get better, though no one can say with Absolute Authority that they might have gotten well without the prayer, or that knowing others were praying caused a “placebo effect”.

The hang-up here is that the “reproducable effects” are mainly internal/personal. If I meditate every day, I may lower my levels of stress and lead a generally healthier lifestyle as a result. My own health has nothing to do with an outside observer. Likewise, a “Healing magick” may improve the health of the sick person OR if they get more ill and die, the effort involved may allow the people praying for healing to accept the larger picture that this person is now at peace.

Either way, the effect is not directly reproducible in the same way that a chemistry experiment is reproducible. It’s more probability-based or personal-driven, which is hard to quantify except in the large-scale. Each situation is different, and only aggragate results show a hint of “reproducible results” to outside observers. You can’t measure a single prayer or spell and extrapolate to include all prayers or spells. The nature of the thing being measured makes such an attempt invalid, like using a metric ruler to guage your favorite shade of green. Green can be measured, in some other form, usually by comparing other types of green, but not by itself.

5) If the answer to 4 is no, then how do you personally determine whether something happening was caused by Magickal intervention or pure chance? I’m sure you are familiar with experiments on human pattern matching. Why do you think what you experience is magick and not chance or luck that anyone could have? Why do you think that some people get what they desire/need/want without prayer or intercession?

This is a tough one, mainly since I define magick differently from the assumed topic being questioned here. However, I would answer that I simply do not determine the difference between chance and magickal intervention. If I pray, or enchant some trinket to get a result and it happens, then I do not automatically assume it was purely because of my efforts. I merely assume that I MAY have helped that outcome by my efforts. The converse of that still fits my worldview, and if everything is random, then our own personal mission in life is to make sense from the cards we are dealt. Some folks try to play the cards one way, some folks just play them as they are dealt, and neither is “correct” in the larger scheme of things. For the individual, though, I feel it means more if you try to be smart about which card is played next, but there’s nothing stopping others from simply letting them fall. Also with this view, I may not get the ace of spades, and you might, which fots the analogy of why some folks get lucky or unlucky, even with their [lack of] efforts.

6) Does magick demand faith? If so why?

Absolutely, though again, it seems Meme’s questions include a definition of magick=Prayer. However, faith, being a belief in some higher power, or a certain aspect of Reality, would be a type of magic in my definition, in that it allows the forming of a relationship with something Outside our own selves. Creating that bond is the magick, just like that indescribable feeling when you meet a new friend. Wether that Otherthing be a god, a spirit, or science, the fact that is exists beyond our humble human bodies, is the important magical part.

I read somewhere, “If you believe a truck is coming toward you, you will jump out of the way. That is belief in the reality of the truck. If you tell people you fear the truck but do nothing to get out of the way, that is not belief in the truck.” Having faith in something means you act according to that faith. If magick exists, then you have faith that is does. You could be deluding yourself, of course, but Faith in and of itself, is a type of magick, so exists for me and is esssential for the thing itself. Sorry if that makes no sense. Even if your magick is the fact that invisible electrons flow through metal and make sparks, you have faith that each time electrons flow, you get a spark somewhere. Faith in electricity does not exclude faith in hydrodynamics, or esoteric Faeries in the woods. Apples and oranges, they are. The Magick in my worldview is that you have absolute Faith in something, and it works for you. The details are merely details.

7) Would you agree with the statement “Magick is whatever you want it to be.” ?

I would have to disagree with this statement, but not quite sure why as it seems like an invalid question. I think my issue is a difference in semantics with our concept of “magick”, but am unsure how to answer this properly. I defined my magic elsewhere, and in defining it, automatically negates your question or answes it in the negative.

That said, I think you were asking something deeper here, but can’t wrap my head around what it could be…. sorry.

If any type of prayer to any being/force/power is magick, would you say that everyone has access to magick to the exact same depth as everyone else? Do some people have more? if so why?

Again, slightly differing definition I use, but appealing to an Otherbeing is possible by anyone equally, at first. I say at first, because it is absolutely permissible to try and establish a relationship with that person. Like any random peson you meet on the street, though, some folks you’ll get along with better than others. It is the same with Faeries, Gods, Goddesses, or spirits. You can ALWAYS say hello, but some folks will always have a different rapport with certain ones and shy away from others.

I suppose it’s like our jobs. Anyone could try to learn program-code, but not everyone has the natural aptitude or mindset to get really into machine-language, and stops are learning BASIC or C++. With effort, anyone probably could program in PASCAL, but not everyone will ‘want’ to.

This means, while anyone can potentially have deep relationships with a certain deity or Otherbeing, it takes work, (and a bit of Faith that it works.. see what I did there?!) and a natrual inclination to persue that to begin with.

And lastly 9) So my question is, do you apply your skeptical thoughts to your own experiences or do you accept them as they are? Was there a point when you did critically examine whether they could be something other than magick, whether pyscological, neurological, pysiological, etc?

This question was more specific to Nettle, but I understand where it’s coming from. For myself, I am skeptical of everything I do, to a point. More specifically, I ask myself at times “Does this work for me?” and if the answer in my head is affirmative, then I act accordingly.

Your second point, I can answer better. In my youth, I was an assistant minister. I felt the communal energy at church, how the gathering of people there for worship made me feel somewhat in awe or at least ‘different’ than when I sat at home and tried to pray to God. I figured, if I noticed the power of my congregation affecting me on some physiological level, then there must me soemthing to this God/prayer thing. It felt more “Real” in church than alone at home, so I started studying ministry on my own and eventually got to read lessons and hand out communion wafers.

Yet, the more I read about the bible, Koran, and other sacred texts (since I was taught a bit about other monotheistic religions so I could argue my own better with ‘non-believer’ skeptics) the more I started to notice that there were inconsistancies, or flaws in the ‘logic’ of my church. I understood that the church congregation itself was a useful SOCIAL construct, for everyone to gather together, but my core Faiths were starting to be shaky. I started to essentially phycho-analyze my relationship with God, and about this time discovered neopagan concepts.

I didn’t entirely believe them either, but it was the first non monotheistic faith-based lifestyle I stumbled across, and as such, allowed me a borader framework to critically examine my beliefs, and restructure my own thoughts into something resembling my current Spiritual Outlook. I still believe in God, but added a few other concepts to that belief, magick being the biggest one.

Even today, any new thing that I come across, be it Qaballah, Hindu, Jewish, or any other spiritual practice, I am willing to do a bit of reading and see if anything sounds logical. Mainly, it doesn’t. But as you probably guess from the last two years of blog-posting, I periodically still question things and turn a critical eye on what I’ve been believing, which will never stop. Questioning myself (or ones-self) is an important part of any spiritual practice, so you can tell if it’s not working right.

Unfortunately, such critical navel-gazing doesn’t lead you to a better path, but at least lets you know you may need to step off the current one.
Hope that helped you get a different viewpoint.

PS: I do also enjoy philosophical debates on the nature of spirituality. (See God’s Debris, which is a cool little read that I dont’ agree totally with, but does have nuggets of Truth-for-Maebius inside it’s pages) My wife will also tell you how much I banter and scripture-quote with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I do it not out of spite, but to show them I’ve thought of their message and can not bring myself to join it. Knowledge is power, and all that.

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Not much to report on the Daily Outdoor Zen project, other than it’s starting to be a nice habit (though I forgot one day already).

One nice thing I did today was have a wonderful breakfast entirely from our backyard. I snipped a small asparagus plant into little teensy bits, added some Garlic Mustard and Chives from the literal backyard, and then collected three eggs from the chicken coop. Sauted the greenery in a pan with some olive oil, then de-yolked one of the eggs (3 eggs, 2 yolks).
Other than the olive oil used to grease the pan, everything for that breakfast was from my yard, which tasted YUMMY and felt really healthy and natural. Great way to start the day!

And in other garden news, this year’s hops bine[sic] is doing much more vigorous growing than it did it’s first year. The tentacle-beast (as I call it now) is well over 8 ft tall as it wraps around it’s support pole, and has a lot more tentacles, plus is a good deal thicker than a pencil, approaching sharpie-marker thickness on the main tendril! Should be a great Hops harvest this fall. Woot!

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We woke up around 9:00 from our camping, and slowly got organized for the long trip home. Assuming a fast and direct route, we could make the drive in just over 4 hours, but with all day Sunday before us, we decided to play things as they happened.

The weather was much better, with hints of sun peeking out from the clouds, but the wind still whipped and the temperature hovered around 45F. Brrr!!

One fun thing I could have mentioned from yesterday, was the fact that before it got dark Saturday night, the rain had flooded the entire lower field of the Share campgrounds, turning it into an expansive wetlands lake almost 5 inches deep in places. Kids and kids-at-heart (which probably includes Everyone at that gathering) were wading in the puddle. It was fun.

Back to sunday, we grabbed a cup of coffee from the camp-kitchen, said our goodbyes to some of our friends, and packed up to leave by 11. The weather got sunnier and sunnier, but thw wind still howled across the highway in some places. We took our time, stopped for a casual late lunch, and quite a few rest-stops to just stretch our legs. Finally, after 6:00 we got home.
That evening, I went to see the new Star Trek movie with my friend Varulv. It was surprisingly good, with my only complaint being the sub-plot of Ohura’s emotional ties. (spoiler free!)

Afterwards, I spent a little time outside, on our porch, with no deep thoughts. Simply relaxing at home, with the memory of a good couple of days behind me. It was cloudy again, and still rather windy, so I don’t think I lasted the entire 15 minutes.
Still, the outside time is a good little ritual to be getting into the habit of.
Simple, and fun. It was nice.

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Saturday, we attended the spring Share Festival. Camping, bands, and cool people in a safe family-friendly park just hanging out and chilling for a time. Of course, unfortunately, the weather was a bit less than ideal for such outdoor adventures, so we spent most of the caravan trying to stay dry.

During the day it was a bit clearer, and I spent a good deal of time just laying in the bed and playing Pokemon Diamond on the shared DS system. My wife finished book 4 of Twilight, and we kept an eye on our son who spent a good 3 hours in the playground area of the park being a kid and enjoying time with other kids under minimal supervision. He absolutely LOVED the free range kid-time, and only wandered back to the campsite a few times for a snack or to ask us to help him in the porta-potties.

That evening, with the band jamming until 11 and the rain getting progressively more monsoon-like, we all retired to the caravan to sleep. I sat for a time in the front seat, just watching the trees sway in the darkness and listening to the pounding rain on the rooftop.

The wind grew, and the outside faded to a grey wall of vaguely shifting shadows. Buckets of water poured around us, and it was hard to hear myself even think, much less try to quietly meditate. Instead, I tried to just shut off my brain and lose myself in the white noise.

Branches peered out from the darkness, then were gone, then back again. The noise, at first a seemingly constant din of pounding drops,could be heard to ebb and flow, rise and fall in a complex pattern of wind and water. The car itself rocked and shuddered at each gust, resounding at times with a furious -CRACK- from the tarp tied over the back window for easier dark-sleeping.

I felt a primal exhilaration in the tempest, and released my mind to it. I danced among the storm-whipped treetops. I flashed with the thundering flashes of lightning, and I hovered, darting amidst the other campsites as some alien hummingbird seeking nectar from the tents around us.

For a time, not sure how long, having no clocks in this stormy darkness, I darted and played, mentally, in the wild energies around us, then returned my focus to the car-seat again, smiling like a fool, and giddy with the power raised and tingling in my fingers.

I found I had been unwinding a length of hemp twine that had been leftover from one of my son’s crafts earlier that day. I had unwoven it to single thin strand, and then knotted the strands together again into a long chain. This, I suddenly felt, would go around my wrist. Each knot typing up some of this wildness and empowering it as a potent charm. Wordlessly, I tied the finished bracelet around my wrist, knowing it was imbued with Potential, and would be worn as a reminder of the Charm until it fell off.

Because it is meant to fall off, probably within the next week, as the strands are thin and already frayed. If the weather reports are to be believed, it will be sunny and much warmer than when it was created.
The storm will have passed. It will be free.

((good luck B, this one’s for you))

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I must admit, only 5 days into my attempt at sitting outdoors for 15 minutes every night, I skilled last night.

Technically, I suppose I could say I spent at least 5 minutes staring up at the cloudy sky in the evening, listening to the wind rustle in the poplar branches and sighing through the maples and pines in our front yard. But such technicalities skip the whole Deeper Intent thing that failed to happen.

We planned to get up early the next day, for S.H.A.R.E. Fest camping, and were packing,. plus my head was just too chaotic to ground properly and settle down before bed, other than lying in my bed quietly, at which point I woke up and it was the next day. Must have been either overtired, or just so spaced out and semi-stressed (in a good way) to get more serious quiet-time in. *Le Sigh*.

The Blog theme problem didn’t resolve itself, so I will try a full re-install of this site once I am satisfied that things are backed up in triplicate on multiple forms of media.

For now, the green theme is back, with all it’s flaws and fun. Enjoy!

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Last night’s sitting outside was cold, wet, and windy as all heck, so became more of a sitting on the porch with the windows open. I did not do much thinking of deep thoughts, nor have any brilliant insights. It was simply a nice stress-freeing bit of down-time, which was really the reason I started this daily practice.

In other news, I reset the theme for this blog temporarily, in order to try and get the RSS feeds working. I had put in a support ticket to my web-host, but they said they do not support WordPress plugins, so I’m on my own. The strange thing is the provider SUPPLIES an automated install of WordPress, which I used, yet am now told they don’t actually support it and I should just try to uninstall/reinstall.

I’m too worried about the effort of backup up the entire website database and re-installing it from scratch. I have everything backed up on a weekly basis anyway, but the effort to go through and re-create the databases initially is not worth it just quite yet.

Hopefully the old green theme will be back next week, once I troubleshoot some things on this end first.

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Not much to report today.

I sat outside, tried hard not to fall asleep and just zone out, and realized after not getting very many consecutive hours of rest while working the midnight shift at work, I was just too darn tired for much more than catching up on more ZZZ’s.

Tried reading a bit of a book, stared at the same page for what felt like an hour, then figured zen-practice can wait until tomorrow.

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Nettle made a comment in a prior post about something I said, and have now used as the subject of this post, regarding my brain being weird.

Not to disappoint, my night-shift sleep-deprived right-brain then suddenly began an intense conversation with my left brain to go sod off somewhere while it played. After flouncing around with the first two verses completely spontaneously, it shackled the left-brain again to listen up and contribute to the joint effort and come up with a rhyme for Sartre (which does in fact, rhyme with “apple tart”) and then, consequently, the first parts of that particular verse.

The first draft of this little bit of mental gymnastics is found below. While it’s not quite Xanadu with it’s stately pleasure domes, don’t say I didn’t warn you!! This whole poem popped into being within about 10 minutes, and flowed all-but intact in concept as I typed… then I had to go back and edit it to conform to the initial lettering pattern I noticed in the first two verses which were [unintentionally?] the same.

One thing I know, my brain is weird
But not as much as I had feared.
It takes such random stimuli
From tongue and finger, ear, and eye
Transforming muddiness to cleared.

OBIFT the letters from the first verse,
By normal terms, not a word, much worse,
I could form it into mantra text
Freely spoken, though others vexed
To get the depth in such so terse.

Twice now I used five selfsame starts
For yet the third time drifts apart
Inspired by a blog-post Dream
Began this poem’s rhyming scheme
Oh, may relate to Sartre !?!

Till more research is done tonight
Final findings won’t come to light
In addled brain they bounce around
Boing boing, then suddenly they’re found
On further dreams and posts I write.

Now, back to work I go!

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Day two of my outdoor moon-gazing was slightly hampered by the fact I got paged in to work night-shift for the next few days. Getting up to be at work from midnight-8am tends to mess up my schedule a bit, so when I sat outside, I promptly fell asleep and woke up a good 20 minutes later freezing my butt off (this morning, there is frost on the grass!!)

Nothing much to report today. Going to finish up my work-day, then go pass out in bed and wake up just in time for dinner tonight.

..zzZZzz..zzZZzz..

PS: I figured out the little dream-note from yesterday. (Either that or am getting good at rationalizing connections to unrelated imagery.) The owl, and the tea linked themselves in my memory to some recent semi-thoughts about this whole faerie connection practice I’m on. There’s quite a bit of trepidation on my part, for some reason I can’t quite put into proper words, but most likely due to it being a shift in my worldview that is tough to get wrapped around. It’s something akin to a loss of control, seeing Otherlings instead of Inner-Reflection-Aspects (how I originally thought of the Fae).

As my geek-mind sorted out the message yesterday, it kept coming around to the same place, which I initially discounted as too silly and fictional to be a Real Message. It fits, though, and for those who get the reference, while I did not fight my way past any goblin city, there may be dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, and I DO remember the last line of that quote… Yet, the note (GK?, really?! come on silly fae) said to forget it for a short time, in a non-malicious way. It totally makes sense.
Nettle said once: ‘Remember that the imagination is a sensory organ. Information comes through our sense organs and is interpreted and sorted out by consciousness.‘ I’m guessing my consciousness needs such strange symbolisms and not-quite-silly connections to get things like this noticed and not immediately dismissed as irrational because they are so unusual. Hmm…?? *grin*

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Starting yesterday, I promised myself I would try to spent 15 minutes a day, EVERY DAY, outside doing nothing but sitting. I did it once before as part of Susun Weed’s green ally course, and tended to wind up being every three days or so, but was nice. I’ve totally gotten out of the habit of making specific time for myself or calm meditative practice that did not involve a computer game, so for one moon-cycle, I will try this again. I’m thinking of it in terms of “Outdoor Zen”.
(Probably more technically outdoor Shikantaza)

Yesterday, I just sat and watched the clouds chase the moon after the rest of the family went to bed. No thoughts popped into my brain, and my goal wasn’t to muse upon any deep and challenging topics. I just kinda zoned out for what felt like 15 minutes. Wound up being about 10 minutes until my brain snapped back into place and I felt “Done”, and finished early, since I would rather end on that feeling than try to artificially stretch out my “starting to get cold now” body for another 5 minutes.

Interestingly enough, this morning when I woke up for work, I was in the midst of a strange dream. I know Nettle likes dream interpretation threads, here’s the quick vague summary.

I recall seeing the moon as I was watching it during last night. The clouds in my dream were more noticably shaped to appear as objects-but-not-quite (such as an inkblot test) but no pervasive symbolism was apparent/remembered.

A huge white owl flew across the moon at one point and vanished into the night blackness, and I smiled wondering (in my dream) if I was going to have a faerie visit later.

Next, whether due to lucidly forcing the dream or as natural progression of it (is there a difference?!) I glanced down and saw my scrying shell in the table where I was sitting outside. At thing point it was apparent that instead of being on my porch, I was sitting at this ornately humble wooden table in a clearing in some northeastern temperate forest in full summer foliage (more advanced in season than current trees around here).

There was a steaming mug of some really earthy-sweet tea by my side, possibly reminiscent of honey’d Starwood tea, or an unusual Genmaicha, and a fortune cookie-like snack that tasted of cranberry or pomegranate . I cracked open the cookie and read the fortune, which simply said “Forget the last line, it’s more fun. -GK“

I woke up then, not entirely sure what the message meant, but I’m sure my inner-brain will ponder it out in short order, or I’ll suddenly get it during one of the next few meditations. I plan on making at the very least a short one-paragraph blog post each day (though with delays while we travel and such) to document this month-long experiment. One thing I know, my brain is weird, and getting better at actually remembering dreams.
Wish me luck!

(Aside: why all this earthy/Persephone/autumnal energy-feeling lately? My workspace, fascination with tart anti-oxident foods like blueberries/cranberries/pomegranates, enjoying the twilight more than the dawn, and wanting to get almost buried in the darkest composty earth I can find to be cool and relaxed? Hmm…)

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