Is it weird that I order my life in terms of relationships (or lack thereof)? This is the way I break my life up:
Early childhood(California),
Later Childhood:(Oklahoma pre-middle school),
Begining the path to Wierdness (middle school),
The Crush years/Culmination of The Weird/(i.e. High School until Junior year), Patron Saint of Pariahs/Band Years/New definitions of Family/First Readings/Pre-Micha(later part of Junior year to Oct 1994)
The Micha Years(Oct. 1994-Dec. 1996)
post Micha (Dec. 1996-early '98 or so)
Poetry Reading/Pre Jen-Jen (early 98 to August 99)
Jen-Jen (August 99-Feb '01)
Post Jen-Jen (Feb '01-April '03)
Current
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There you go, a break down of my life so far, in a simple to use format. If I should ever release a bio for whatever reason, at this moment, this is how the chapters would be organized. I think that, where the chapters have multiple descriptions I would break each chapter into pieces in which I would elaborate on those descriptions.
In fact, perhaps as an excercise to strengthen my memory, I should probably start something like this. I think I'll start the project tonight.
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Invocation
Quick Note:One should always begin and end any sort of magickal working with a banishing ritual. This is of the utmost importance, as it keeps pre-existing conditions from interferring with the ritual, and helps prevent obsession after the ritual is over.
Part One:
This should be a formulation in the mind of the Aspect of creation you wish to work with. Basically, you are praying to the Being while formulating a mental picture (certain aspects of which should be included in the prayer) of the Being. The prayer itself should be a praising of the deity(or whatever) and it's attibuted, including some of the physical ones to help with the formulation of the image. Your subconcious already knows which physical attributes are important, let it guide you in writing the ritual. Most them are pretty much common sense. If one were attempting to work with Heracles, for example, obviously his hand, with which he strangled the serpents while still an infant, would be important. (Freud would have a field day with this, in my mind I can see him right now, jumping around in his pink tu-tu and laughing about what an obvious metaphor for sexual potency that is, but I'm trying to ignore him. In my head, Sigmund is no longer "in the closet", in fact, in my head, he and the Beastly one are obviously lovers, and I get the impression that Al is the top)
Part Two:
With the image of the Being you are working with in your mind. Petition the Deity to come upon you. To use you as It's vehicle. This should need little explaination.
Part Three:
Now it's time to literally lose yourself in the ritual. Basically to allow the Deity to take over you. This is when the purpose of the ritual comes into play (if indeed there is one, other then the ritual itself), as the Deity announces Itself and It's intentions, which just happen to correlate with your own at the moment. At least in most circumstances. It is important not to place any concentration whatsoever in the intended purpose of the ritual. In fact, if you are concentrating on anything at this stage of the ritual, you are doing it wrong! Because concentration applies attempted control, and attempted control implies that you have not really lost yourself, or given yourself over to the Deity. In fact, you probably shouldn't feel like anything except a puppet, mimicking the words of the Being. It's sort of like when one loses oneself in the writing of something, so that it becomes automatic and "writes itself".
Part 4:
The Deity departs and the magician thanks It for coming and blessing him/her with it's presence, etc. Usually ending something similar to "Let thy Will be done." You should have this thank you memorized because you still shouldn't be capable of concentrating enough to make something up (depending upon you of course).
As stated before, end with a banishing ritual and force yourself to go and think about something else.
This is the long version, the short version includes all of this happening astrally, and the only required motion in the vibrating of the name of the Being you are working with, until said Being enters you and you are lost to it. This is when the Diety (for lack of a better term at the moment), uses you as a puppet, and through you takes care of what It needs to do. Again this usually should coincide with the goals of the ritual, but not neccessarily. Even with this ritual, do an Astral banishment before and after. The only advantage is that you can complete the entire ritual almost instantaniously in this fashion, if you have your version of the ritual memorized. The problem is, if you don't have it memorized there can be complications. Also either way, there is a tendancy to attract "things", thus another reason for the double banishing rituals.
I would like to note that most of the time over the past few years "astrally" has been the only way I usually get rituals done. The constant close proximity of certain individuals usually kept me from being able to physically perform them, as well as lack of space and clutter in the space I had to contend with. I actually look forward to having enough space to do things in again, physically performing (in a sense) the rituals, as well as add some new ones I haven't been able to use.
~Matt
