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Every day the altar grew, new offerings from the surrounding natural habitat. The day before, a beautiful, enormous moss, about 3 feet long and maybe 10 inches wide, sprouting, lichen covered, at least four to six inches thick, discovered on one of the morning recce's out into the surrounding forests.
Today, driving down some remote scrub lane to reach a distant town, two young girls, in the middle of nowhere, at the side of the road selling a beautiful holly wreath. Huge, rich evergreens offset by red ribbons, like solstice sprites with offerings just for us. We screeched to a halt as we passed them, reversed up and made the transaction. A bargain.
Then on into town. After stopping at a couple of large out of town stores and having no joy, we reached a proper, picturesque little slice of bucolic history. Not yet homogenised and victim to the mono-isation of superstore brands, cobbled streets and tunneled vistas revealing owner managed little thrift stores and curio shops, obet d'art and objet tat.
My travelling companion needed new uniform, while I had a very specific agenda indeed. It was day two of Pad. Sebastiao, and tomorrow was the biggie. Two consecutive works, part 1 beginning at 6pm, a concentration, part 2 straight afterwards, at maybe midnight-1am and going right through until daybreak into the solstice, a dancing work. I needed the offerings for a working with the Orixa.
I went in many shops looking for what I required, mostly little curio places and charity shops, and acquired the visage of Oxum, which was a bit of a surprise and not on the list, but just sang to me..'I am She!'. Black and white, airbrushed grays, with gold and pinka nd green detail, she can be seen in the pics posted at the beginning. Don't get me wrong, she's nothing like that in the visitations...but it is appropriate in a 'topological' sort of way, like a map of a tube system isn't anything like the real geography of it, but it makes more sense the way it's represented. Such with she. Rainha do meu Coracao! Minha Amante! Ori Yeye O!
I also picked up a rather jazzy gold vanity mirror, with lovely stitched detail, for her, she does so like to be sure she looks her best. A suitable hairbrush I could not find, and I had left my giant, beautiful peacock feathers behind, but cinnamon, two lots, 5 sticks for offering and 5 for her place on the altar, plus honey - organic, and fairtrade, naturally.
To even get near her, of course, I was going to have to work at the crossroads with the Keeper of the Keys, so I obtained his offerings also. I'm not going to go into that too much, it's a bit of a tricky one one with Him. He himself is not really welcome at [xxxxx] works, being a little bit tricksy, my precious. Red and black are completely banned from the ceremonial space once the trabalhos are underway, for this exact reason. Too many malfeasant sorcerors working with those mysteries, though the Power himself is neutral, I believe. But, a trickster, no doubt about it, and [xxxxx] works are not about trickery. Care is required.
Anyway, it took pretty much all morning, searching in so many shops, high and low, to obtain the correct magical apparatus. I was, to coin a phrase, on a mission. Having anounced my intention to make the working, quite a few people were keen to come along and take part, so it was important to get it right. The mirror, for example, I must have shopped around for about an hour and a half before I found the right one...it's almost heart shaped, and can be closed, which is perfect...Can't just rush into a drugstore and buy the first cheapest looking glass on offer, no sirree, no ma'am. This ain't a Christmas present for some distant vaguely known cousin.
Back to the ceremonial space, and the holly wreath was beautifully laid at the back of the altar, behind Iemanja. I saved Oxum for the next day, after her wworking, all the oferings and altar pieces carefully stored away together.
By now my LBRP was a lot more confident. I had discussed what I was up to with a number of daimistas, so everyone pretty much knew I was a card-carrying, fully initiated screwball crazy of the highest order. What with the magic scrawlings on my middle pillar, and the bizarre rituals after yoga in the middle of the room, I was getting something of a reputation...
Today was to be the second part of Padrinho Sebastiao, and the addendum volume, Nova Jerusalem...powerful hinos.
My I Ching for the day, after the banishing, and under the guidance of Lady Oxum and Kuan Yin, was as follows:
A changing situation (every cast was changing, surprise surprise):
Present situation : 13, Tong Reng, Seeking Harmony (Fellowship with Men)
Transforming to
Future situation : 15, Qian, Humbleness, or Modesty
For those who know the I Ching, obviously something auspicious is afoot here. For those who don't, it doesn't come much more groovy than this, based on my environment, intent and the enquiry of the divination. Gua 15, particularly, Humbleness, is considered to be the most important hexagram in the entire I Ching, even more so than 1 & 2, the Creative and the Receptive, so intricately tied as it is into Chinese character and culture. Proudly I drew these Gua on my body, like burning sigils were they with me throughout my work that day. The I Ching as a book of wisdom is without comparison, in my experience, I revere it. It lives in an ornate gold cloth, only taken out for divination, the cloth laid out before me, sat lotus, my coins, kept on my altar by Oxum (who likes copper coins) cast onto the cloth...Beautiful ritual. So much of my life has begun to take on ritual aspects, great care and attention paid to the detail of all things. It suits me.
By this stage of our proceedings, I have not slept for three days...rested, sure, slept, no..,I have huge energy, however, and do not look or feel at all fatigued. I do not seem to need it.
Today, I drank twice, full glasses, on every round. The work was joyous, energy high, communication extraordinary. After the third round (sixth glass), about half an hour into the continuing work, something odd (more odd than 'usual') began to occur.
Some of the hino's in the latter half of Pad. Sebastiao are extremely up-tempo, with many, many words in the teachings. In spite of the wonderful translations, my ability to read was completely scuppered...Focus was all over the place, bright light shining and transmuting out of the page, the words dancing like a burlesque troupe across the page.
I am, it should be noted, somewhat recognised for my stamina at the works. I can just keep on goin', boss! But, as this progressed, all of a sudden something very peculiar happened to me -
- I began to vanish.
Yes, disappear. Now you see me, now you don't. Or rather, now I see me, now I don't. I would be grooving away, blasting Xzeczxycza, when *POP*, I'd just sort of Rent-a-Ghost out of existence...not knowing where I went nor what i got up to while discarnate, then *POP*, I'd rematerialize in the work a few minutes later.
Needless to say, I found this a little disconcerting. I tried, valiantly to read my hinario, pick up where we were, but it was no good. I started 'whiting' out, my vision would just fairly rapidly explode in the most extraordinary bright, white light, leaving no trace of any colours or forms or divisions or substance, and I'd be disorientated and finding it hard to co-ordinate standing up.
Time to take 5...eternities.
I went to the back corner of the space, where a rather handy double blow-up mattress was positioned. I sat, lotus and Vipassana at the ready, and began to ground myself.
It was no good. Something was happening, and I could sense danger. Klaxxons were sounding in my DefCon 5 mental apparatus, not 'Oh, I'm going to be sick', nothing like that...I am pretty stoic, have never even vaguely had an issue with the Vine, ever, but I was starting to get concerned. I sensed my blood pressure was hugely elevated, I could feel enormous heat flowing through my nervous system and up out of the top of my head, and my brain was hot. I was, no doubt about it, getting uncomfortable.
It crossed my mind that any minute now, I could well have a seizure. I have seen it before, a grand mal in the middle of a works. Not a pretty sight, not at all. (I think I detailed it in the OT). I really didn't want it to happen to me, but I could sense something enormous and uncontrollable approaching, and it was frightening me. I was on the verge of getting a fardado and telling them I thought I might be in a bit of trouble...what coul I do? I stayed it, though, unable to even move, truth be told.
I was breathing deep, deep, rhythmic inhalations and exhalations, ferociously controlling this rising energetic storm within. Within about three to four minutes, it started. A white hot, so hot it was cold, freezing cold, or maybe the other way round, so cold it burned, sensation at the muladhara chakra at the base of my spine, and suddenly, snaking up in helical spirals shooting in pulsing firework regular bursts, one, two, three, four, five, immense streams of energy running up my spinal column and up over my skull, to explode at my third eye. Double helix, the classic DNA spiral, two distinct snakes firing huge pulses of...I don't know, what can you call that? Power? Energy? Chi? Prana?...It was, for a moment excruciating, and I thought 'Fuck. This is it. See you on the other side.'
But, Ave Maria cheia de graca, O Senhor e Convosco. Bendita sois Vos as mulheres - Mother Porridge stepped in and showed me how. With her guidance, I graciously got the FUCK Out. Of. The. Way.
My body was totally automated, and as I sat, lotus, hands in lap, one held inside the other, as a fist, Xzeczxycza in front of me, head facing the work, suddenly my entire sytem filled with...gnosis. My spine began to elongate, on the deep, deep inhalation, from the coccyx to the base of the skull, slowly but surely pulling my head upwards until I face vertically, straight up. At the apex, without holding my breath, my shoulders rounded rounded out, and set themselves forward and quite solidly down, then my shoulder blades adjusted, and as I exhaled, my spine recontracted and pulled my entire body, head first, then peristalsis all the way through the spine down towards my lap, until I was tight, coiled up like a chrysalis...yes, like a chrysalis, how appropriate. And then repeated, inhaling, and elongating, head up chakras connecting with the sun, the moon, the stars, the astral, arms and upper body setting itself in the most extraordinary fashion, to whcih I was little more than a vaguely interested, nonchalant observer. And exhaling back down, into the Earth, deep into the centre of this Mother I love so much, drawn into her mass like a foetus.
It was like, though i had no vision of any such thing, but it was like there was a perfectly in tune with my body third party there making all the movements by applying gentle pressure to the correct limbs and muscles and nerves, like being guided by a fantastic yoga guru, guiding the movement to perfection.
And it grounded me. It removed all trace of the panic, the anxiety and allowed the enormous outflowing of what I strongly suspect was Kundalini to flow in the correct fashion throughout my system. And it flooded, out from the spine and chakras, through every cell in my body...I could feel it like...like fire, basically, but white hot, like a nuclear reaction passing in chain reaction though my cellular makeup. It was, I powerfully felt at the time, like a chiming clock in my conscious apprehension, right down to the DNA. Not just a crossing of chemistry through the blood-brain barrier as a result of imbibing the Porridge, it felt powerfully, irrevocably, as though something had got deep, deep down, right down, to the very code of which I am formed, the blueprint itself. And it exploded. It was extraordinary, beyond belief, even beyond anything that has occurred within this system up unitl this moment. I was solemn...not sad, not upset, not anything else...solemn. Serious. I had to work very hard to contain this almost completely overwhelming, consuming experience. Blessed Porridge, thank you for your help.
I must have sat doing my snake-like deep breathing and spinal asana for upwards of half an hour...completely and utterly wrapped in it, until the firing light in my spine was calmed to a manageable level. Once it had slowed down and cooled down a little (though it continued for the rest of the work, until I ate), I was given, incerdibly, some other unbelievable asanas. My body just moved into these incredible yoga postures I have neither ever been taught nor even seen...Amazing contortions, which rally brought the enrgy under my control...I can only remember two of them, unfortunately, but the memory of the experience itself is vivid. Without question I performed these instructions, there was no question of getting in the way, wondering about it, marvelling at it or any such thing. Do. This. Work. Sorceror's detachment to the nth degree.
My shoulders, at one point, became so manoeverable they were like those robot arms that make cars or something, able to rotate, forwards, backwards, in perfect circles, and completely automated to the rhythms of the ongoing trabalho. It was absolutely stunning. But even this was as nothing compared to what was about to follow.
I had substantially calmed and worked through this immense occurrence. I was back open-eyed, having been shut for much of the yogic interlude. I wasn't yet ready to get to my feet, though. I just sat, meditating, open eyed, and watching.
Without any fanfare or drumroll, I received a loud and clear calling from my genetic code. My cellular consciousness. It spoke to me, as we are speaking now, actually no, more directly than we are communicating now, like a conversation with a long lost friend. 'OK. You've woken me up. Shall I show you what is possible?'
Before I could respond, it started...
I
grew
eyes
on
the
sides
of
my
head.
What.The.FUCK?. Like a hammerhead shark, these perfectly formed eyeballs just popped, sort of oozed out of my temples, and i could see out of them. I had nearly 360 degree vision. I could see behind myself.
I was utterly dumbstruck. Genuinely, absolutely jaw-on-the-floor. Dribbling. I had 360 degree vision. Well, say 300 degree. How the fuck does that work?
My egoic little self got momentarily worried, visions of Tetsuo from Akira, Genetic code run out of control, the Dao expressing uncontrollably as I burst forth with tentacles and pseudopodia and such like, but the..process that was in charge quickly stamped this out, it visibly reduced in size and volume and was gone.
Nothing, I mean, nothing like this has happened to me in the [xxxxx] before. It was far more like reports I have heard of smoking DMT than consuming the Vine. It was a deep, deep DMT experience, a joyride through the sorcery of Amazonian shamanism and quite the most extraordinary event of my journey so far.
It didn't end there, though. After the side-mounted eyes, my head started sprouting arms with eyes on the end of them, and I could see out of all of these appendages. I was able to synchronise all manner of spectacular visual effects with these handy limbs and ocular organs, and they were also quite playful. Occasionally one would piop out to loko at something, and another would appear with a hand, and slap the other one, like some kind of mime or vaudeville routine.
I was also given this vision of other people being able to see them...I was riding on a tube train and winding up this passenger something chronic by having these appendages pop out of my head and get slapped away by others, always just when they weren't looking so they had to blink and wonder what the fuck was going on...Quite a wind up merchant of a wizard I was.
In fact, I was forcefully reminded of Don Juan, particlarly the later books when the sorcery is at its peak, and there's that other cat, i forget his name...Don Pedro?
If that's right, then that was me, Don Pedro. Just plugged into the nagual and letting it express itself in the most immature, pranks and silliness fashion possible.
I was able to (with my consciousness, that is...keep up at the back! Don't get carried away!) walk up the walls and walk upside down on the ceiling of the hall, swinging from these energetic 'rods' and 'vines' that i could 'see' connecting everything together. It was great fun. I rather cheekily went over to the girl side and swung about a bit on the ceiling over there. Incredible. Beyond anything I've ever experienced in my whole life. Bona fide, watermarked, limited edition, signed by the artist, authenticity guaranteed Sorcery.
VIVA!
I tried to get up and rejoin the throng, but as soon as I stood I got extremely wobbly and whited out again. Back I sat.
I was now able to experiment with my disappearing act. It was amazing. I could, now at will, rather than randomly and somewhat worriyingly, vanish. Just, ZHOOP! Gone. While gone, I was...what can I say...*GONE*. There was N.O.T.H.I.N.G. But, this nothing had the ability, enough consciousness, to re-manifest and ZHOOP! I was back there in the room. Bloody marvellous. I was hugely amused by the notion that it would be so great if I could rally develop the ability physically. Just pop out of exstence and then pop back again. What a fucking party piece. I could imagine people fainting and all sorts.
Since I was stuck to the inflatable mattress for the time being, I became fascinated with Xzeczycza. I held him in a variety of mudhras (boy has the Porridge ever given me mudhras...it freaks my Mrs out a bit, I tend to do them all the time, unconsciously, really)...and held him against my forehead, directed lots of the power I was receiving and channeling in him and through him and generally meditated on his phallic, magic power. He and I deeply bonded. He was filled with sorcerous power that evening, even more than ever before.
Some stuff I could shy away from telling because it makes me sound like an egomaniac, but in the spirit of this thread generally : Fuck It. Plus, it struck me that it could well be the Deceiver up to his old ways, which was a morsel of food for thought, and so belongs here, really.
I truly got wrapped up in the notion of manifest effects of this incredible magic...that is to say, stuff other people might be able to see. And, though it pains me and makes me flush to share one of the visions I had, I did, and here it is : I grew a fucking halo, alright?
No, I'm not a saint, not by any stretch, but there it is, I've said it. I grew a bright - like a magic, more neon than neon - halo, and I couldn't tone it down or switch it off - it was stuck there. And how's this for strangeness - i had this rush of thought about being on Oxford Street, and people are, understandably a bit freaked out, a bit like 'What the fuck is THAT!?!?!' about this whole halo thing, and when they ask, my reply is 'My Father gave it to me'. And when they press further, wings unfold from my back, and I have to gingerly admit, 'Uh, I'm an angel. No big deal.'
This bloddy Porridge has a way, doesn't it?
As I say, I recoiled from this, because those Seven Deadly Sins are the weaopons of the Adversary, the Deceiver. And He has many ways meus irmaos, so many ways.
Hehe. Bwoy, am i a nutjob, or what? Ganesh, help me out here, how many boxes do I check on the CrackPot questionnaire?
This work was explosive, and no mistake. At the end, after the prayers and clsing litany, the applause and euphoria were stratospheric. Three days in, and many of us had been there from the start. It was starting to gather its own momentum, to really take off, to head off out into space, or head in into space, whichever you prefer.
I was unable to contain myself to tell others about the Hammerhead shark experience and what had happened to me. It was an amazing night, chilling out and eating, eating, eating all that glorious, tasty vegan food feast afterwards. I can't really bang on enough about how much I love the people at these works. Just bloody awesome.
I played some badass, badass percussion with one of my favourite people on thisplanet there that night, my travelling companion who drove us there. What a lovely guy. Man, did we shake some booty with those skins. Love it!
So yes, quite the extraordinary journey. As incredible as this had been, however, it is tiny, insignificant and totally meainngless compared to what was to transpire the very next day. Solstice eve, the hinario of Caboclo Guerreiro, the hinario of the Apocalypse, a concenttration in which 'All incarnate and discarnate spirits' are invited to bring their wares and woes to the work, the day in which the Orixa working was completed, many daimistas were freaked out, and the evening in which I was emancipated from the stranglehold of my thinking mechanism.
VIVAAAAA! |
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