Barbelith Underground > Temple > Halloween and Black (and Orange) Magick

So this morning I wake up from my first wolf dream...

Let me back up:

Last night I was casting about for a working to do - I was tired, I wasn't feeling especially motivated toward any of my usual magickal outlets - I just knew that I wanted to do something, and not in the house. I was very clear on that point. Now, something about me: I have too great a tendency to play the armchair adventurer. I read, I theorize, I wax mythical about the grand things to come - and, tired from all that, I go to bed. Huh. :| It doesn't mean I don't put effort into things, but I have a problem bringing my energy to bear on the more active, in your face aspects of anything - a group of friends is going for an ambitious late-night hike over some treacherous territory, so I spend many hours gathering information, maps, satellite photos of the area, and a list of known dangers - from the safety of my desk - and then, when the time comes, find some reason why I "can't make it." Yeah, it's kinda sad. The same thing applies to my magickal practice - this is a big part of why I insisted on grabbing the Halloween current as hard as I have: to make myself get over that and start doing something. It's working pretty well, but I still have that heavy sense of inertia, that there are so many things that would be great to do, but they're so much trouble, and it's late, and it's cold, and I'm tired, and couldn't I just do the FMB and raise the pillar of bats or something then check my email and go to bed?

So last night, at 1:15am, I said "okay, that's about enough of that," and went out. I didn't go to any of my usual spots (the cemetery, the old railroad bridge) - I wanted something new to sniff around. I drove around for a little while, then pulled the car up Old Holyoke Rd., which I had passed many times without so much as looking down it. There was a big ROAD CLOSED - Local Traffic Only sign. I figured, "hey, perfect."

Now, I don't know if I have ever driven down a street that gave a more witchy (and I ain't talking Wiccans) vibe - it almost made me turn around and find someplace else. The reek of the Autumn People was upon it for sure (it demands further investigation). I passed through that "zone" and came out the other side, to where the road pulled very close to the raised highway (the Mass Pike, for local readers) - and there was a tunnel passing under, with a gate. So, like any good noctivator I slipped through the gate into the echoing blackness beyond.

Inside, I closed my eyes for a couple minutes to let them adjust to the darkness while I attuned my hearing. I called down the Bone Daddy's blessing on my endeavor - which was, more or less, a kind of "facing my fears," in this case the Fear of Doing, or the Fear of Too Much Reality. I also, not knowing what kind of security (or drunk people, to judge by the occasional beercans) I might face, I called on the Wolfman to guide my steps and protect me from harm (and "give me eyes and ears that pierce the night," etc.).

I explored what lay beyond the tunnel/underpass for a good hour - the backlot of the Westfield gravel quarry - an unearthly landscape glowing in the moonlight, a wide marshy plain bounded by a semicircle of nearly sheer rock cliffs - "ruins" lining the hill of approach, the concrete bases of long-gone buildings. It was really something, and I was really doing it. I was frightened much of the time, but never paralyzingly so. It felt very good to do, and to have done, and I know that I will be back there again, now that I know where it is and how to get there.

While my little night-walk was not, in itself, explicitly tied to my Halloween workings (despite the blessings I asked for), it was a vital first step in the werewolf working: before I can feel truly comfortable in casting elaborate and mindbending solitary ritual off in the woods at night, I first need to actually be able to bring myself to be in the woods at night. More on the werewolf thing below.

I returned home and had a brief ritual - FMB, pillar of bats (less intense this time - next time I will take longer to gather and focus the energy before releasing the bats), a ritual thanks to Jack and the Wolfman for looking after me and, lastly, an appeal to the Pumpkin King for inspiration in how to best align myself with the Halloween current. I asked him specifically to reveal it to me "through signs and dreams."

Coming full circle to the beginning of this post: I had my first wolf dream last night.

Technically, by the "plot" of the dream they would've been coyotes - I knew where the dream was set and what animals I could expect. I was at the house of an old friend (she wasn't there, but her mom was complaining about her - sounds about right), and there was a recurring sense that it wasn't a good idea to go outside because of the animals - I think the others in the dream were afraid, so I took them at their word.

Then, through the window of the glassed-in side porch, I saw them. Three-ish (you know how dreams are?) grey canines, frolicking at the edge of the woods. They looked small from this distance, coyote-like (in keeping with my expectations). I stood and watched, recognizing dimly in this none-too-lucid dream that they were of significance to me. Suddenly, they were right outside the window, and they were much larger than they had appeared - great muscular grey wolves. They were agitated and behaving aggressively towards... I think towards the window itself, that separated us. There were domestic dogs in the scene as well - I think one was actually outside (this one had blue mask-like markings on its face, I remember that), tethered on a short rope and cringing against the house - the wolves ignored it (I think there was a boxer dog too, and someone was holding it on the porch). Then, they began to howl. They howled and it filled the dream, and the glass was gone and I howled and we howled together, and I registered surprise that I could do it, that I could howl with them, and it was good and then it ended, and I was awake, sweating, adrenaline-shocked, and very very late (my violin student was probably already at my studio waiting for me while I was peeling myself out of bed).

It was pretty intense, not least of all because I haven't been remembering my dreams very clearly at all for a couple weeks. The Halloween current almost feels like walking in dreams while awake anyway, and my sleep has been quiet and deep. This was anything but quiet!

I also take it as a sign from the Bone Daddy, as requested. I have been waffling a lot re: the werewolf working. My original conception, as previously noted, was to do a werewolf-themed ritual to recognize the Full Moon and also one of the Cardinal Monsters. My research, though, has itched at me and reminded me of my childhood fascination with the monsters, my fervent desire to become a wolf and run the moonlit forests (as I reached puberty I began to append "with my pack" to the original fantasy). I was so passionate about lycanthropy (and magick...) for many years, but it was buried somewhere when I reached highschool.

The desire is strong to explore lycanthropy more fully, as a kind of magickal expression of the bestial self, and this morning the Pumpkin King gave me his nod - "how can I best align myself with the Halloween current?" Howl with the wolves.

Good Hunting,

~L