#techwitchery

[approximate-ritual]

About the blue goldstone: I had a feeling that it wouldn't work like natural crystals do, because it's manmade. How come it works, eventhough it's just glass infused with copper? :)

Because it is manmade, and we are magical.

Prometheus gave us the divine gift of Fire, to ensure that we would be able to make things for ourselves, cook food (Prometheus also ensured we would be able to eat meat, rather than having to sacrifice that to the gods), and prosper above all other animals. In taking this gift and crafting things of beauty, be they amazing meals and drinks or metalworking or goldstone, we are using that magic. We have harnessed fire in the form of electricity, and learned to thin it out from light and heat to invisible beam of radio transmission. And all of it is still divine, no matter what we do to it.

It isn’t just like natural crystals, no. But have you ever worked with angel aura quartz? That’s a natural stone that is permanently treated by fusing platinum and/or silver crystals with heat and vacuum to give it an iridescence beyond that possible in quartz naturally.

It is manmade. And it is magical all the same.

The idea that what we make cannot ‘work’ magically is part of the Lie. Imperium is the right of humanity.

[approximate-ritual]

In Other News?

The person I aimed my exit sign spell at has suddenly decided to be a reasonable human being, and start asking people for input in matters that involve them and has apologized for some of the worst of their crap.

I'm taking this to mean that it's not time for them to leave my life yet. Perhaps there's a lesson yet to be learned. But here's to becoming tolerable!

[approximate-ritual]

My current project: working on a spell based on a schematic design for an exit sign with a protective circuit. I might end up making this my Groundhog Day project, to help me get a demanding brat out of my life with minimum backlash to myself or our mutual friend. Cleansing means throwing out things you don't need, right? She's a definite drain on my energy as it stands.

(I know probably no one will care about my spell designs, the way I ogle faerylizzy's crystal grids. But I'm still putting them out there.)

[approximate-ritual]

Wolf Moon Ritual

Now, I'm currently in a place where I can't so much as have a candle in my room (think college dorm), so lighting a bunch of them wasn't going to be a thing for me. Instead, I climbed to the top of the highest structure I had roof access to, and lit my candles there--the parking garage just down the block from my building.

Instead of taking the stairs, I chose to walk up the ramps to the roof, in a coiling path. To me, coils are a great way to attract things--a wire in a coil with current running through it is an electromagnet, after all. So I went up and up and up four sets of ramps to the roof, to the east side of the structure where the moon was rising. And it's a lovely night for it, even with light pollution making it impossible to see the stars.

Once I was there, I laid out my candles and put my mask on (I prefer to be covered in the presence of gods. I'll explain this in more detail in another post, if anyone's interested).

I lit my candles (a pair of "meadow and rain" Glade scented candles--you work with what's available) and did a small invocation, calling upon the Moon in all Her faces. Then I did some chanting and drumming to build energy. At the height of the ritual, I said a short benediction, asking for emotional support in the face of change, before closing with a song about the Moon that we used to do at summer camp.

Once everything was done, I blew out the candles and left them up there. And as I went back down the ramps, I gathered the trash (beer bottles and cans) that others had left in the parking garage. After all, it's nice to leave a place better than you found it, right?

Tonight's ritual was low-key, and really felt like a lead-up to next weekend. I always feel the solstices, equinoxes and cross-quarter days more strongly than the full moons. Then again, there are reasons for that: the winter solstice is my birthday.

[approximate-ritual]

Schematic Symbolism in Magic

Now, I'm sure that someone drawing a sigil or talisman might have a use for this symbol:

Perhaps to them, it would mean "lightning" or "charge" or "manifestation". To me, though, that's the schematic symbol for a resistor. A stumbling block that slows energy down. That the voltage drops across. It is resistance to voltage itself--or in this case, "juice".

I am an electronic technician. I speak a jargon that not everyone does, but it has meaning to me. I understand how energy flows through visualizing wires, circuits. When someone says something about grounding out energy, the symbol I think of is this:

An electrical ground.

To me, a lot of spells can be transcribed in schematic form. "From energy source, power flows through components, a signal is developed and transmitted, and what energy is in excess is sent to ground."

This works for me, but it might not work for anyone else. I'm actually really curious to see if there's anyone else in the tumblr magical community who works with a different set of symbols than the typically prescribed ones. Please, share your views and experiences. I'll give more insight into mine, if there's interest!