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Okay, I added two more things.
Urban Totems: From Pigeons to Cockroaches. Now what angle could we use?
I would first develop on synchronistic spotting of any life form, from insects to birds and mammals (read: dogs and cats mainly). By the way: have you noticed how we to tend to literally delete them from perception as we are busy in town? The spotting should range from full manifestation, ideally the "Real Thing" seen -and eventually touched-, to spotting it in normal or lucid dreams, TV zapping, magazines, pictures, web searches. The more "random" and repetitive the spotting appears to be, then the more suggestive (for example, if you open a magazine about tech-engineering and first thing you spot is a seemingly out of the place scorpion in a photo, then it is more significant than finding it in an insects' encyclopedia -the exxon tiger doesn't count in oil magazines of course, unless someone forgets the magazine in the bus). If you just happen to find while channel zapping a special on the Discovery dedicated to your probable totem, and then it suddenly appears in your favorite comic book issue of the week, that may be it.
Then, from the spotting comes the relation. Fixed gazing with the animal/insect/totem should be seeked, or at least tested. If the totem stays quiet under your gaze or makes anything out of the usual take it as an indication, unless a bee sprangs like a missil to your eye, which would be an indication anyway. Touching it would be of course the indicative peak (a skiny dog doesn't count if you are eating a hot dog): a bird stands on your arm more than it eventually would, a spider crawls comfortably through your navel and drops a tiny speck of shit there, a butterfly stands on your hand and stares at you. It may be a plus if somebody hanging by notices it. And by the way: don't go crazy with flies, everybody knows how they behave, so if you want to become Lord of the Flies better do something really way out of the norm. Eat them.
Also: about dogs and cats, these can be your totems, but bear in mind you don't have to do with them what people is already doing: having them as pets. A magickal dog or cat would never become a standard pet. Pets can be seen as the totems of "consensually-agreed-normal" urban life (just go check Norman Rockwell pictures and see what are animals doing there). This does not discount that if you already have a dog or a cat you can develop a totem relation, but remember: treat it as a magickally equal being, you have to give it its own space for magick, so let it be, don't take it to the psychologist in your spare time. Potentially, your own dog or cat is the most suitable partner to start with, unless he is a caniche, or any of those breeds genetically desigend to support and embellish "dull-normal-life" (which we may eventually need more than we think, by the way). Also, I once visited my aunt in Berkeley and just by walking a single block I practically saw an entire zoo: from serpents to monkeys, all of them well fed pets hanging by its owners, so check how "normal" those things are at each place. Serpents are cool urban totems, but it relies on you, its owner and feeder, how magickal can the relation turn out to be.
Then follows the "now what?". Through any altered state you are familiar with, start operating, interacting with the totem. Check encyclopedias, dictionaries and symbolism, but don't buy into everything they say. Check comic books also, especially characters that already have their own totems (yes Batman is fine, but go read about urban bats also, unless you want to end up as neurotic as Bruce Wayne). And, of course, find out for yourself through an altered state. Invoke it, meditate on it, telepathically talk to it, create a mantra, a sigil, a logo, a T-shirt, a belt, a neck lace, as much as you like. Don't use drugs, in general, until you are thoroughly familiar and friendly with it. And don't loose your pants with any specie. I don't know if it is our own mirrored anthropocentrism or what, but, if you honestly ask them, all of them will want to get you jumping around the city saying "I am a snake, I am a snake, psssssss", or whatever the spirit (gee, just like my human familiy). So, if you have trouble with this and Papa-Cockroach is asking you to enact The Metamorphosis with you as Gregor Samsa go take a course on managing relationships, elegant persuasion, powerful communication, or whatever you already know you need to deal better with humans and spirits. Start with humans, please, and in your own daily life. Take a course on dealing with hostage situations and then go to work, or pay a visit to your monstruous uncle. Appear to be at ease anywhere and with anybody. You have to be the ultimate urban-samurai in this sense, strategic, elegant, and negotiator, as best as you can. Learn all urban jargons as possible, but with direct experience (check that forthcomming chapter). In short, if you can't approach a beautiful chick on the street or your president's company in the elevator without mumble speech, then don't try it with Cougar-Spirit.
Briefly on possession, you may be asked to go through it, sometimes very evidently, and its okay, but remember, unless you were born in Haiti and saw it happen every month since you were a kid, it is likely once its over you'll end up banging the doors of a hospital asking for assistance, so proceed with caution, and have prepared beforehand a good banishing technique.
Last word: pay attention to the seeming highly unlikely at first sight, especially if you already have a life long totem everybody heavily relates you too (you look and smell like Sabretooth, you have whiskers, long and sharp nails, you usually reply in grunts, and you also display the freakish egotistical behavior of a cynic loner, "I work alone, grrn!"). This is because you will always draw to yourself the counterbalancing archetypes, and of course you will dismiss them as completely unrelated to your ego. A dog may come, a horse, a bird, insects, reptiles, pay attention to apparent random redundancy, so clean yourself a little, learn about other behaviors, become a little more "ant", more "spider" like, before you get shot in the middle of a glamorous jump. |
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