I haven't experienced much of life, so in most cases I just sort of shut up to try to not look like and/or end up being an ass but one thing I've learned during my time is that love is one of the most powerful forces in this world, love that unites us, the love behind faith, hope, and charity. Especially the love one stranger exchanges to another in what sadly tends to be an alien (yet beautifully human) expression of random kindness, the urge to help another human being simply for the sake of seeing another person smile. Sometimes this can be accomplished with a simple gesture or joke, simple yet at the same time completely awesome. Yea :)
Most likely one of the grooviest plant genios that I've worked with has been that of the tobacco, when it comes to plant beings I tend to look at it in a similar fashion as the planetary forces in terms of hierarchy and sympathia, you got yourself the base spirits that essentially can be considered the 'poison' of the material that comes to sort of symbolize the corrupting force brought on by things like excess (the spirit of the tobacco plant being ever present within cigarette products in my opinion) the intelligence that is essentially the benevolent virtue, the medicine so to say of the plant, and then you have yourself the ruling Zodiacal, Planetary, and Angelic forces (along with of course other associations with deities and such born in other traditions) the essence of the plant that I work with is the virtue, working with it as an ally for four main things:
1.Cleansing
2.Offering
3.Protection
4.Prayer and meditation tool
By principle I consider tobacco in its pure state to be a noble plant, connected to mankind, being burnt in sacrifice for prayer and other such purposes, thus acting as a physical representation of the Alchemical I.N.R.I principle and also coming to represent a union of the four classical elements, raised up from the Earth, fed with Water, burnt with Fire, and rising up into the Air as smoke. Thus in my personal work I utilize this ally a lot, always keeping in mind tobacco's Martial association. The Archangelic patron of Mars, being in my work Samael whose name translates into the "bitter drink of God" something that can be interpreted in two fashions, as a poison and a medicine, something that as shown by my above statements I believe is fully applicable to Tobacco and various other physical plant items and spiritual beings (in reality a whole slew of things.)
Now in my work one of the things I feed most with tobacco smoke is my machete, which is in practice my substitute for a sword. The machete belonged to my Grandfather and he used it within his Oggun cauldron, now I use it to honor the Warrior mysteries and as a representation of the divine law and my connection to it as a magician. I use it to cut away malignant forces, set up wards, and triumph over bad situations as my Cuban ancestors with machetes at hand triumphed over Spanish oppression in the Cuban war of independence. I tend to remember the imagery of Christ with a sword in his mouth, the sword symbolizing the Logos/Word, in my case as a representative of that holy force, instead of a sword I got a machete held in my right hand, Cigar in mouth as the holy word melds with the smoke as a manifestation of my will, Abracadabra!
..Then again though as Sigmund Freud once said "..a cigar is just a cigar" no I don't like sucking fat dicks, just wanted to get that out of the way, phallic tension.....LUZ!!
Everyone you meet,
everyone whose voice you hear,
whose face you see,
whose hand you touch,
all leave a piece of themselves within you.
Every smile,
every gesture,
is a touch in another plane,
a hug,
a kiss,
a caress,
a stab.
Everything capable of healing your heart,
can just as easily rip it asunder,
a person to hear your woes,
to be there when you're full of glee,
to be there when you're full of sorrow,
to have a true friend is to be blessed,
and to be cursed.
Every person lays a brick to build your tower,
each brick a memory,
each brick an experience,
beautiful or painful.
Another color to the painting,
another color to your soul,
another inch added to your smile,
another inch added to your frown,
one more tear added to the repertoire.
I hadn't slept all night, I hadn't studied at all for the test and I knew in various levels that I was fucked, I had gotten good marks in my Writing (560) and Reading (650) SAT so all I had to take was Math (420..ironically)... as you could guess my worst subject, but I'm a magician, if I go down I go down in an enchanted ass blaze of glory. 5:45am hit and I took a bath, heading down I started to prepare some coffee, the beads connected with my Guardian Orisha, Agayu, placed around my neck. Walking into my spiritual temple/garage I started lighting up the candles on my Boveda, reciting my prayers, honoring the divine mysteries, the mysteries of nature, and the honored dead who walk with me.
Funny enough it was Wednesday, the day associated with Mercury, so after tapping my spirit staff three times on the ground I rang a little bell 8 times and intoned the divine name associated with the Mercurial forces, then said a short prayer in honor of the mysteries associated with that force, after pouring some water libations I reached for 1 of the 6 down turned boveda glasses (that I had kept in a little drawer opened up right below the main Boveda area which had the central 'fountain' cognac cup with a small wooden cross both having belonged and having been used by my late Grandpa in his own practice. The other thin cups I kept on top of 6 consecrated planetary talismans, the 7th, solar talisman being underneath the main cup.) That day being a Mercurial day I pulled out the glass on top of the Mercurial talisman, filling it with water and saying some prayers, asking for the mysteries blessings and benedictions I then proceeded with the rest of my daily routine. Lighting up a little block of charcoal in my thurible I waited for it to ignite to place some frankincense on it, in the mean time I poured some honey to the gate keepers and lit up a cigar blowing some of the smoke on a machete I used to honor the Warrior mysteries, I blew some on myself to purify me. With my machete I proceeded to make the pentagram symbols in the four directions, doing so after blowing some tobacco smoke, saying an incantation involving the five holy wounds of Christ, and honoring the four great archangels, the familiar sound started, the crackling of the charcoal block. Put some frankincense on it and the smoke began to rise, circling the thurible around la Boveda three times, for the light of the holy trinity, and the three holy virtues, I then performed the rosy cross to establish the temple as a place of Christ consciousness and to promote the cultivation of the Sacred Heart. Praying that the holy waters of the fountain quench our thirst and the thirst of all beings with the holy spirit through sacred compassion and that the flames of wisdom burn away all illusions and melt any mental blocks.
One short break with a few shots of coffee later, I went upstairs and got a cigarette paper and some red ink and a paint brush, then went to the spiritual room to get a consecrated bottle of red wine, coming back out into the living room I took a deep breath, it would be the first time in all my five years of experience I ever used blood for a magical working, got a small white plate poured the wine and the red ink..now for the blood. I got the little tool used by my mom to prick her finger to check her blood sugar *click* little shrill scream later I noticed no blood coming out...about 5 tries later I finally got some, one little droplet added to the mix...PERFECT...!!!! Mixed it all together and began drawing some Mercurial symbols and my petition on the cigarette paper, folding it towards me, I filled a little cup with some distilled water and started heading out to the room. Setting the stuff down, I got a little piece of cascarilla from my altar and drew an encircled cross in front of it, reaching into my Bovedas middle shelf, above my Guede shrine, in which I would place all my lamens and alchemical tinctures, I got the object I was looking for, a little aluminum foil wrapped jar, my beautiful child, my parsley tincture and next to it a little plastic bag which contained its cremated corpse.
"URGH DAMN IT" I thought to myself..in all caps, speed walking out the room and heading upstairs, I went into my room, opening the drawer of my bed platform, I reached passed a small plate that contained two small wax eyeballs and got an orange candle that I set in front of a St. Lucy icon..lightly jogging back downstairs, I went into my temple and put the candle down next to all the objects and lit it..okey dokey:
1. Colorful Candle *check*
2. Cool cage decorations *check* (yea I know self defacing humor gets old I'll keep it down)
3. Miscellaneous *check*
4. Dread and desperation..*check*
5. Solemn resolve *check*
Lets fuckin' do this
Getting a small orange plastic kids spoon I put some drops of the tincture into the cup, then a little bit of the parsley ash, getting the cigarette paper talisman I proceeded to set it on fire using the orange candle..got a nice blister and most of the ashes of the paper talisman fell of the floor but a small amount did land in the water..gucci...one shot later, I fell into a light trance, the power flowing through. But the butterflies still remained, I still felt shivering nervousness and then I caught myself, never once did I ask to pass this test, never once did I ask to receive all the answers all I wanted was to go through this and stay sharp...was it just that I didn't want to have to question my own faith? Well whatever it was I got up, filled the martial cup with water, vibrated the holy name and said a short incantation, lighting up the cigar once more, while I was upstairs before hand I checked my computer to see the time, martial hour. Grabbing the machete once I began to pore breath the energies within the room, beautiful orange and crimson hues, and I prayed, not for a quick fix but for the courage to face the destiny ahead of me. So turning off all but one candle (the orange one left in vigil within a bowl of water) I stepped outside of my spiritual room, my mom was in the kitchen having just woken up, reaching over to kiss her she took a whiff and told me "you smell like sorcery."
So I got dressed but unfortunately in my nervous rush I forgot all about my favorite Corduroy Blazer, to me that thing symbolizes raw victory and prosperity (I know, how tacky right?) but whatever time to lock and load, my mom and I went down to Miami Dade College and I joined the long waiting line, luckily for my nerves three people I knew from high school where there and me mom was at my side, so some small talk and nervous smiles later I went to take the test with a few "good lucks" thrown my way.
Guess what?
I completely and utterly bombed that test, failed it disgustingly, and I knew it was gonna happen why cause I'm an asshole and I didn't study before hand. I accepted this and the next day I went to the library to get some study material and accepted the two remedial classes as penance for my idiocy and plus I sincerely do need some active practice in math. So I take it for what it is and move on.
How do I try to justify this as a somewhat successful operation?
The simple fact is that I don't believe the spirits are gonna whisper something in my ear to let me get by easy, it isn't the way the spirits I work with roll plain and simple and I really don't aspect them too either. But about 4 years ago a similar scenario happened, when I was suppose to pass 8th grade, I bombed math and failed my Final, it was really painful for me, I truly thought that with the help of the spirits and no study I could pass, I confident in that fact, it had been about 1 year since I first started practicing at the time, but even then I would go to a Feng Shui shop and help the clients out, at that time I was working on a divorce/child custody.domination/job series of spells, the job one I remember got results within 3 days blessings be to St. Lazarus, the rest I'm not so sure off..nasty business (for some reason when I was 13 and 14 I came to experience adultery, harassment, and death as an active spiritual worker, learning what it meant to be Human and helpless against fate, but man was I a defiant little fucker) but needless to say I failed..and I immaturely took it out on the spirits, crying and throwing a tantrum, I was in denial. When I went through summer school though I discovered what a hidden blessing it was, I socialized with a cool group of people, I soaked in the summer rays, and I learned math..truly learned it at that level, then after that by some miracle I'll talk about later I was able to move on to high school and do my thing. Still though I felt for the first time in action an honor and integrity that gripped me, a sense of responsibility that I didn't know I had and an urge to improve, so I still blaze forward onward and upwards, a magician till the very end, and I know one day I'll take that fuckin' test again and I'll kick its ass, next time though I'll study and of course not forget to wear the blazer.
Hello whoever is reading this, my name is Anthony, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance and I'm glad to have someone actually be reading this up till this very point. I established this thing to just take the time to manifest all the things within my head in a nice blog setting, of course most of these blog posts will be in connection with my personal passion, esoterica. Now I'm young and I only have 5 true years of active working experience within the spiritual arts, I was brought up in the Yoruba, Espiritismo, and folk Catholic traditions and over the years I'm melded the tech together with Hermetic philosophy and practices along with other techs that have resonated with me and proven to work. Ultimately I base a lot of my personal style and system on what works and what can be applied, I enjoy getting my hands down and dirty and doing the work, though I do love to pretend to understand philosophy. As you can imagine I'm a pretty big fan of a few magicians around the blogosphere and I take and apply certain things from their style of work, finding inspiration in it (Jason Miller is awesome, and if it wasn't for a Frater R.O. post I probably would've never started practicing 'western' style conjuring. I'm still actively using the table of practice in my work and everything lol) But to sum it all up, I'm human, one who wishes to learn and grow and reach out to others in a not so cruddy way, I hope you guys enjoy, much peace, light and progress to all of ya.
