Preliminary Ritual Calendar 2013

Early last year, I devised a five-week conjuration cycle that has me conjure the angels of the seven planets, the angels of the four elements, and my natal genius.  In each conjuration of each of these forces, I’d spend time soaking in the light and power of that particular sphere, reconsecrating and recharging whatever tools or talismans I have, meditating on that force’s symbols, and asking for specific or general advice about where to go or what to do next.   It’s a neat system, although one I didn’t stick to as well as I ought to have.  I did it a couple of times, and recently went through all the angels in consecutive days, which was also a blast and pretty powerful (and what Frater RO and a good number of other guys keep doing just to say they can).

However, a lot can happen for a beginner like me in the space of a year: I’ve gotten in contact with my HGA, I’ve started an involved devotional practice to Hermes, I’ve started doing weekly readings and occasional classes at the local new age shop, and I’ve picked up a few more rituals and works here and there that need to be done every lunar month or so.  Basically, I’ve got work to do, and having a schedule to organize it and put it on my calendar to bug me about it on my phone and all is kinda important now.  So, in effect, I have two interlocking cycles, a 5-week planetary cycle for conjurations and some devotions and a 4-week lunar cycle for other devotions and works.

The five week cycle is mostly the same as before, going through the planetary angels in descending order (Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, etc.) on their respective days and hours, with the four elemental angels sometime around midday on the Wednesdays not working with Raphael of Mercury.  This way, I have two or three conjurations a week, which isn’t bad for constant upkeep.  The big change to the conjuration cycle is that I’m not explicitly conjuring my natal genius anymore.  Instead, I plan to perform the Headless Rite with some extra bells and whistles, using the Light from the ritual to hold a conference call between my natal genius, my HGA, and the angel of my occupation (the third of the threefold keeper of man that Agrippa speaks about in his Third Book of Occult Philosophy).

	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
1				Raphael (Air)	Tzadqiel (Jupiter)
2			Kammael (Mars)	Michael (Fire)
3	Michael (Sun)			Auriel (Earth)		Haniel (Venus)
4	NG/HGA/AO			Raphael (Mercury)
5		Gabriel (Moon)		Gabriel (Water)			Tzaphqiel (Saturn)

Not shown in the above is the weekly devotional cycle I do as well.  Every morning, I do a set of prayers to the First Father, but on certain days I augment it with more prayers or with prayers to other gods and offerings to spirits, depending on who needs what when:

• On Sundays, I spend more time in contemplative prayer and repentance, as well as making offerings to the solar-ish healing god Asclepius.  I also like to incorporate the Headless Rite into my normal routine, just to bask in the Light from the ritual as well as touch base with my HGA (who has largely supplanted my natal genius in responsibilities) to make sure I’m doing the right thing and doing it right.
• On Wednesdays, I make offerings to the spirits of my home and land as well as perform a weekly devotional to Hermes, as well as performing a variation on the Litany to the Holy Archangels written by Michael Seb Lux.  I also like to do divination readings on Wednesdays in an hour of Mercury or of the Moon (my work-from-home days, which gives me a lot of time to work on my Work).
• On Thursdays, contemplation and an invocation of the forces of Jupiter to fill and bless my life’s work and fortune.  This started out as an instruction from Tzadqiel, the angel of Jupiter, to continue until further notice due to a Jovial issue in my own sphere (Jupiter is badly detrimented in my natal horoscope).  Omitted on weeks I conjure the angel of Jupiter (subsumed into the conjuration of Tzadqiel).
• On Saturdays, contemplation and an invocation of the forces of Saturn to protect and structure my life’s boundaries.  This is due to Saturn’s oddly dignified nature in my natal horoscope, permitting it to be one of the most favorable forces for me to work with (and to temper the malfunctioning Jovian force being done with the weekly observances).  Omitted on weeks I conjure the angel of Saturn (subsumed into the conjuration of Tzaphqiel).

Just to give myself a break, I’ll probably space each 5-week cycle out by a week, having it be six weeks in total.  This is probably unnecessary and a willingness to be lazy on my part, but it will help me maintain a healthy social and romantic life, not to mention giving me a break to keep tabs and wrap up anything down here that needs wrapping up before more conjurations need doing.

The other cycle is lunar, going by the phases of the Moon.  Only a few things happen with this (so far): the big ones are the Hermaias, my monthly devotionals to Hermes.  Hermes is associated with the fourth day after the new moon, so on that day at dawn I’ll make an offering of food, incense, prayer, and the like to him.  Conversely, though it’s not attested elsewhere, I’m also honoring his chthonic, underworldly aspect on the fourth day before the new moon (as a kind of reversal or switch), where I’ll make offerings to the spirits of the dead and act as psycopomp with Hermes’ help.  I’ll do a ritual for the Full Moon sometime around midnight when it’s full, and do a quick offering and ritual to the stars of the Big Dipper from the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM VII.686) when it’s new.  Beyond that, I don’t do much tied to the lunar cycle, besides divinations for myself and for others.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
New Moon	Arktos Ritual	House blessing, general material creation and consecration			Ouranic Hermaia
First Quarter Moon
Full Moon	Full Moon Ritual
Last Quarter Moon				Chthonic Hermaia (optional)			House banishing

NB: the days are numbered from the lunar phase, so that New Moon 1 is the day of the New Moon, not the first day afterward.  Not shown above are things that need to be tied to both the lunar phase and weekday, since there’s no way to really show that in either chart (yay interlocking cycles being horrible to map out!).  So far, the only big thing I have to worry about with that is maintaining a supply of holy water and consecrated candles, which I constantly go through.  The way I do it, I need to time it to the waxing moon (first two weeks of the lunar month) on a Wednesday in order to get a good effect, and also when Mercury isn’t retrograde.  Also, I like to do a general reconsecration and cleansing of the tools I use most on a Friday during the waxing moon with a mixture of holy water and Florida water.

Speaking of, that brings me to bigger cycles than the above 5-week or 4-week cycle.  As for the planets, I try not to do any big magical works I’m not already familiar with during Mercury retrograde (and forgot to do a Mercury retrograde retrospective last time, sorry guys!), and try not to do any craft construction when Venus is in retrograde.  Though I haven’t noticed a big effect with Venus retrograde on my life, work, or Work (or any other planet past Mercury), Mercury retrograde has made slight differences in communication (shallower) and meditation (deeper), but otherwise hasn’t made a big change in my works.  The relevant dates are:

• Mercury in retrograde from February 23 to March 17
• Mercury in retrograde from June 26 to July 20
• Mercury in retrograde from October 21 to November 10
• Venus in retrograde from December 28 through January 31, 2014

I want to try doing more with the solar cycle as well, doing something on the solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarter days of the year, as well as do small devotionals or minor works on important feast days or festivals.  For that, I’ve compiled the following list of important dates for the rest of 2013:

• Sun midway Aquarius (Imbolc): February 3
• Purim: February 23
• Sun ingress Aries (Spring equinox, Ostara): March 20
• Pesach (Passover): March  25 through April 1
• Hermaia: April 11
• Feast of St. Expedite: April 19
• Northern Lunar Eclipse: April 25
• Sun midway Taurus (Beltane): May 5
• Southern Solar Eclipse: May 10
• Mercuralia: May 15
• Northern Lunar Eclipse: May 25
• Sun ingress Cancer (Summer solstice, Litha): June 21
• Sun midway Leo (Lammas): August 7
• Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement): September 13
• Rosh haShanah (Head of the Year): September 16 through September 18
• Sun ingress Libra (Autumn equinox, Mabon): September 22
• Michaelmas: September 29
• Birthday: October 8
• Southern Lunar Eclipse: October 18
• All Hallow’s Eve: October 31
• All Saints’ Day: November 1
• All Souls’ Day: November 2
• Northern Solar Eclipse: November 3
• Sun midway Scorpio (Samhain): November 7
• Chanukkah: November 27 through December 4
• Saturnalia: December 17 through December 23
• Sun ingress Capricorn (Winter solstice, Yule): December 21
• Christmas: December 25

A few notes on the foregoing list:

• I’m already using the Sun’s entry into the four cardinal zodiac signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) to mark the solstices and equinoxes, so it makes sense to me to use the Sun’s halfway point in the four fixed zodiac signs (Aquarius, Taurus, Leo, Scorpio) to mark the cross-quarter days instead of the Gregorian calendrical method.  While most other occultists and pagans will use the normal calendrical dating, I’ll stick to my solar dating and tie it to the cycle of the Sun instead.  The dates are fairly close, at least, being off no more than a week from the popular observance of them.
• The period between All Hallow’s Eve and the astrological Samhain is a big deathy week for me that I’ll probably make a big to-do for the dead (the solar eclipse then helps, too).
• Similarly, the period between Saturnalia and the winter solstice will be a roughly week-long period of partying and fun.
• Yes, dear reader, I do count my birthday as a festival, not least because it usually coincides with Columbus Day (a federal holiday, and thus three-day weekend).
• I’ve also included several Jewish festivals into the list, and I want to try getting into more of them (since I am descended from them, after all, but never really raised it).  Nothing serious, probably focusing mostly on reading and learning, except for the period between Yom Kippur and Rosh haShanah, which will be just a lil’ more strict on the fasting and self-examination.

With this all planned, it’s time to get it copied out onto the calendar and get to Work. Not counting my daily practice, all of the foregoing rituals (conjuration cycle, lunar cycle, and yearly festivals but not including daily practice) amounts to an average of about five hours a week, so even though it sounds complicated and overwhelming, it’s really not.  Expect a course calendar for the stuff I’ll be teaching at the local new age store, Sticks and Stones, in the near future, as well!

Time Yo Shit

By now, you’ve probably heard me and plenty other magicians talk about planetary hours and days.  In fact, a lot of the stuff I need to do needs to be timed to a specific hour to boost the efficacy of some working or other.  Although a lot of modern occultists don’t bother with the details, maybe paying some mind to the phase of the Moon or the planet ruling the day of the week, the use of planetary hours and days is something that’s still fairly tied up in traditional or ceremonial work.  However, it’s still a powerful tool that anyone can use, even if they’re not doing something specifically magical.  Although you could feasibly do a magical act at any time, you generally want time on your side to make things flow easier and more effectively.

In order from most powerful to least powerful timing:

1. Astrological election
2. Planetary hour and day
3. Planetary hour
4. Planetary day
5. Anytime

Using a proper astrological election for a planet is hands-down the best, since it’s tied directly to the strength of the planet and not just to a natural rhythm (though proper planetary elections also involve their proper planetary day and hour).  However, this only really works when you can get an election and, moreover, get a good election.  For instance, Jupiter won’t have another decent election until at least late next year, since it’s in Gemini right now (Jupiter’s detriment), and elections of Saturn can be far and few between.  Because of this, astrological magic can be difficult, and it often suffices to use the natural rhythm of the heavens as they’re in flow on Earth.

You’ll notice I have planetary hour alone preferred over planetary day alone; one might think that the planetary day would be more powerful, but it’s not really the case from what I’ve seen and experienced.  If you consider the force of a planet like light, the planetary day gives an ambient and unfocused light, while the planetary hour provides a sharp, focused, and appropriately hued beam.  It’s the difference between setting a glass of water in sunlight to warm up, and aiming an array of mirrors in sunlight at a water tank to make it explode.  One can use the scattered, dissipated energy of the planet (planetary day), but it’s better if you have some sort of focus (planetary hour), and best if the ambient light is of the same hue as the focus (planetary day and hour).

However, just as some colors work well together and form a new and appropriate color when mixed, some planets are complementary or can combine to produce a force appropriate to a specific working.  This means that a planetary hour on another planet’s day can still work, especially if the two planets are in affinity with each other.  Planets that are generally in affinity with each other are:

• Saturn with Jupiter, the Sun, Mercury, and the Moon
• Jupiter with Saturn, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon
• Mars with Venus
• The Sun with Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus
• Venus with Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Mercury, and the Moon
• Mercury with Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus
• The Moon with Saturn, Jupiter, and Venus

Of course, if you have a good reason, you might be able to swing a pair of planetary days and hours that are otherwise badly related to each other.  For instance, if you wanted a good time to inscribe the Seal of Solomon, a mixture of Mars and Saturn (hour of Mars on a Saturday or vice versa) wouldn’t be bad.  Although these planets are not in affinity with each other, they’re both involved explicitly with the Seal of Solomon and their powers combined help with binding and restricting a spirit.

Also, while useful for timing generally, this doesn’t particularly matter much for sublunar or nonplanetary forces, simply because they’re not planetary.  As such, something to be done under the auspices of Fire can be done pretty much anytime.  However, these other forces can still benefit from the planetary hours, based on their correspondences with them.  A few I’d use would be, generally based on Agrippa’s correspondences:

• Fire under Mars and the Sun
• Air under Jupiter and Venus
• Water under Saturn and Mercury
• Earth under the Moon
• Light under the Sun or Moon (the luminaries)
• Darkness under Saturn (the furthest and darkest planet)

Then again, these forces don’t have to be set in stone.  If I wanted a good time to do something related to communication, I’d either use an hour of Mercury (which rules communication) or an hour of an airy planet, Venus or Jupiter (which both rule good communication as well as air).  Things get a little more unclear when you start mixing up planets and elements, as noted before, but things can still work well.

Then, of course, there’s another system of hours which use geomantic figures ruling the individual hours.  I’ve found lists in John Michal Greer’s Art and Practice of Geomancy as well as John Heydon’s stupidly dense Theomagia, and they’re largely based on planetary hours (an hour of Venus is usually translated into an hour of Puella or Amissio), but the pattern there, if any, is unclear.  I haven’t found much of a use for it, preferring the simpler and more regular planetary hours, on which the geomantic hours are based anyway.

Now, here’s the kicker about all this.  Magic is about making shit work how you want it to work, and it’s not strictly dependent on timing.  Like I said before, timing helps, but it’s not the be-all-end-all of magic.  Magic provides you with the tools to make any time work, whether it’s by harnessing the proper powers that are strong at the right time or by finding powers and spirits that work in a radically different way than you expected to accomplish something to get the same goal accomplished.  The less of a benefit you have from timing, the more you’re going to have to look elsewhere to find other and subtler relationships to do something.  In general, timing helps, and it helps a lot.  Unless you like to make things difficult for yourself, or unless you’re in an emergency when you’ve got to get shit done ASAP, try to go with the rhythm that already flows and you’ll be set.

New Year, New You: Prompt 1, “Making Way”

So, let’s see.  Deb’s got three things for us to discuss for the New Year New You project for this prompt, so here goes my responses and thoughts.

• Cleaning house.  My apartment is actually pretty spartan, all things considered; my living room has a coffee table, a side table with a lamp and some plants on it, and a couch, and a low shelf with some bottles of wine on it.  Beyond a series of fliers of Christopher Walken’s face on one of the walls, there’s nothing else in there.  My kitchen is well-stocked on cooking utensils but light on electrical appliances, but everything gets used sufficiently enough to justify keeping it, save for my apple/potato peeler.  My own room is slightly more furnished, but I’ve got a lot of books.  I haven’t read a good deal of them yet but will, one at a time, others I keep for sentimental value or because I like to reread them once every so often, and still others I keep for reference.  If anything, I need another set of bookshelves to store them all, since I also use shelves to store magical materia and tools.  My closet is, understandably, the fullest room in the flat, and is mostly clothes and extra candle holders, crafting supplies, and miscellaneous household goods and fabrics.  I wear all of my clothes tolerably often, but there are a few I know I don’t wear due to size or stains.  My housemate and I are neat freaks and he’s borderline OCD.  I go around cleaning (sweeping, vacuuming, dusting, wiping, sanitizing, etc.) a few times a month, and do the big stuff (tub, sinks, toilets, rails, polish countertops, etc.) at least once a season, and I asperge the house with holy water regularly (but don’t often do protective stuff, just cleansing).  I just reorganized my desk today and got some of the dust off it and my altar nearby, but beyond that, my house is generally very clean.  I have a lot of cooking and magical supplies, but I go through them all periodically and do, in fact, use them all up.  I dislike throwing things out like that, so I make a point of using them however I can (even if it’s ancient but still useful).
• Spending my time.  I spend about eight hours during the weekdays at work, save for one day a week when I work from home; the commute takes about an hour each way (woo DC transit).  I sleep about six or seven hours a night.  That leaves about seven hours leftover on an average day.  Although I don’t have a smartphone, I do check it habitually for texts and the time; when I’m home, I’m nearly always on my computer on the internet, chatting or reading blogs and cycling through the same few sites laughing at old jokes and reading old texts.  Surprise, the Internet’s a major drain on my time and productivity (something I’ve noticed many times before).  I’m not on too many social networking sites, but the ones that I’m on do distract me aplenty.  Email, too, for that matter.  At least I don’t have a TV to speak of, nor do I play video or computer games anymore.  I go out once or twice a week, usually, to see/hang out/smoke hookah/drink with friends, which can be awfully nice.  I spend at least 45 minutes each morning in daily practice (prayers, offerings, and meditation), and do other things throughout the week as needed.
• Rocks and restraints.  I usually have a list of my faults on hand, but now that I’m writing this prompt, I have a hard time thinking of what’s actually holding me back from getting shit done.  Personality-wise, I can be lazy, awfully so, in the sake of enjoying what can be enjoyed right now.  I like sleeping in, which can be necessary sometimes when I’m not sleeping enough during the week; I like to eat, which makes fasting for rituals and workings more of a fight with myself than not.  I don’t have an addictive or attached personality, but I know I can be overly critical of others or of minor events that other people can more properly see at a zoomed-out level.  I forgive easily, but have and do avoid people if I dislike them so that I can avoid confronting them.  More than anything else, I like being distracted, though my guilt over not being productive enough afterwards isn’t enough to completely get my ass out of my chair.  Although it’s not exactly a rock here, I like being overgenerous with my time and resources, and like to pay for others or hang out with them for their sake alone.

Based on all the above, I think a suitable list for things to knock off before, or at least get started by, the full moon in late January would look like this:

• Go through all my clothes, separate out what I don’t/can’t/won’t wear anymore, and donate it.
• Get rid of all useless candleholders, leftover jars, and other small things in my closet.  Donate the nice ones and recycle the junk.
• Make Fiery Wall of Protection and Abramelin oils to properly protect my home.
• Start cooking more beans, rice, and bread to use up those giant bags of them in the kitchen.
• Get rid of Facebook.  I was going to do this anyway at the end of December, but really, get rid of it.
• Cut back on txting/tweeting/emailing/chatting, and all non-work non-research computer use.  Clean out the bookmarks list.  Entirely cut out morning internet/phone use, and cut out pre-bed internet/phone use.
• Switch browsers to something simpler (from Chromium to surf, which doesn’t allow multiple tabs, bookmarks, or much at all).
• Meditate twice a day, not just once.  I’ve got plenty of time in the evenings.
• Read a bit each day, both to enjoy my time, learn, and get through my books.