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Haloquin, I tend not to work in a structured fashion, but have rather been following relatively random and temporary interactions with encountered materials, animals, architecture and topography, encounters which I then enhance or interpret based on what I can glean from the anthropological/literary records of other systems or cultures. I've been aware of temporary interactions with specific spaces and waterways, of cyclical interactions with a handful of celestial bodies, and, as an outlier, I have established a more longstanding relationship with a major but largely ignored statue in the city in which I live. Now if that doesn't sound terribly rigorous or useful, that's fine, I'm aware that there are both benefits and limitations to this sort of flexible, intangible, and intermittent approach to practice.
Intellectually, I'm quite interested in the discussion of legitimized theft as has appeared in certain systems, though only as a tangent since I can't really relate to it personally. I had no conscious purpose in taking the stone, nor did the act of taking it excite or challenge me in any way. There was no objective hazard in attempting to walk out of the shop with it, nor was it a statement of defiance against the large institution that vends useless trinkets to tourists. The impulse was based neither on feelings of "I want this," nor "Wouldn't it be fun to try to take this?" Readers will have to trust that I can distinguish this honestly; if one can't give me that then I guess we can go round about again for another twenty posts.
Haloquin, to answer your question, I didn't pay for it because I had no reason to pay for it, and were I forced to choose between paying for it and leaving it in the shop I would have chosen the latter. I have no practical use for the stone, nor any existing need within my practice that it would fill. As far as I can tell, I was "asked" to take the stone from a basket of its peers, and did so the only way that was justifiable to me at the time.
Now, all this discussion of market relations and market norms has me asking a bit of a turn-around question. If one's practice involves respecting the independence of things (as was/is the case in many "primitive" cultures which did not view the world through the lens of markets and property ownership), then asserting ownership over an object through purchase could very well void anything you might do with it afterwards. To take your language, Haloquin, my approach in general is that objects involved in my magical practice do not belong to me.
If I had an intentional reason to work with pyrite, I could do some research and find an exposed deposit, travel to it and either work there or ask for permission to take some with me (with no guarantee that the stone would be agreeable); certainly if I were interested in working with sulphur specifically, I'm actually familiar with exposed deposits of the stuff at a regional distance from where I live. However, in this case I interacted with the item by chance in an artificial environment. Not only had I no previous intent of working with it before the encounter, but there would be no meaning to working with it had I actually purchased it.
So what interests me now, after the fact, in looking further into the act itself is not to directly interrogate my own motivations, but rather to explore what purpose, role, intentions or stories other cultures or systems have given to wandering stones (and sure, we can also look more generally, in monetized cultures, at the unpaid for/stolen). I have little doubt that I can learn plenty more about myself in approaching the event this way than by engaging in a self-flagellation bred of the social conditioning necessary to allow the market economy to function. In fact, if I succumb to the demands of the chorus that I admit to having wronged, I won't learn anything about myself or about the supposed "theft." I can't even morally consider it a "theft" since neither the object nor the act itself had or has any value to me, either as a possession or as "possessed."
So that's where I stand, whether any of you find that a credible, coherent reading or not. I've done a little digging in the realm of wandering stones, and while it's a recurring device across cultures, I haven't found much in the way of critical or comparative analysis regarding what it means to view a stone as having intent or agency over its travels, or even mere sensory experience of them.
And then as well, from a materials standpoint, I'm still interested in learning more about any meanings and purposes attached to pyrite by magical and traditional practitioners. I'd be especially interested in uncovering any contrary or unrelated readings to the obvious, European Fool's Gold narrative. Pyrite has proven to be very useful for a number of practical things (both industrial and pre-industrial), and I can't imagine that the only magical approaches developed with it would be the one's associating it with greed and deception. So I'm working on it, and in the meantime if anyone has any insights to share on these questions I'd be very excited to hear them. |
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