Crafts from Christmastime

This past Christmas was kinda fantastic, you guys.  I took off about two weeks from work in the office, started it off with a low-key party at my boyfriend’s, spent a week in my ancestral hometown at my parents’ house dogsitting for them while they went to Maine to see the rest of the family, then returned to Northern Virginia for a good number of ribald New Year’s ruckuses and riots.  A pretty nice, relaxing, and recharging time; I didn’t do much in the way of ritual or practice, but it was fun all the same.  Now that I’m all recharged and refreshed, especially after that two-week conjuration ordeal I did recently, I’ll get back on my five-week conjuration cycle (and see how long I can maintain that again).

However, just because I wasn’t doing much in the way of practice doesn’t mean I wasn’t busy.  I busted out the woodburner, woodstain and finish, and a bunch of wooden placards and got to work making a whole slew of goodies to sell, some as commissions and some at the local store in Fairfax, Sticks and Stones.  Coming up with names or descriptions for them to sell at the store, making them friendly enough for New Agey-types and small enough to fit on the back of a business card, was about as soul-wrenching and fun as making the things themselves, in my opinion, but here’s what I got done:

• Tables of Practice.  You know, the summoning circles with the names of the elemental archangelic kings and planetary angelic governors around the triangle with the cross, pentagram, and hexagram.  I use one in my own conjuration work, based off the Trithemius ritual.  I made four of them: two basic ones, one with “Tetragrammaton” around the triangle, and one with the signs of the zodiac on the outside bevel.
• Divination trays.  These were inspired by my friend Raven Orthaevelve, another occult crafter (whose skill and art far surpasses mine).  They’re large wooden plates to hold runes, stones, crystals, or other small objects used in divination, kinda like the trays used in Ifa (opon Ifa).  The outside could have an abecedarium or some arrangement of symbols, and the inside could be divided up to assist in divination or for art.  I made four of these, each with a different style and script:
  • Runic tray: the Elder Futhark on the outside, with a triquetra on the inside with the names of the three Norns (Nordic Fates), decorated with an eight-spoked wheel and little faces representing the Norns.
  • Greek tray: the Greek alphabet on the outside, with a quartered square and latticework on the inside with the symbols and names of the four traditional elements.
  • Theban tray: the Theban script, also called the Witches’ Runes or Runes of Honorious, on the outside with a pentagram, the five elements, and five holy weapons of the magician’s altar. Definitely my most neopagan-friendly one, ascribing Swords to Fire and Wands to Air instead of vice versa (you know, the ceremonial/correct way) and including the Triple Moon in the center.
  • Hebrew tray: the Celestial Hebrew script on the outside with the hexagram and seven planets on the inside, each with their names written in mundane Hebrew.
• Sator Square.  An ancient Roman charm that can be read forwards, up, down, or backwards to reveal the same text: SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS, a perfect palindrome and magic square of rank 5.  Used across the Mediterranean and European world for centuries.
• Wand of Trithemius.  A rod engraved with “AGLA ON TETRAGRAMMATON” with a hexagram, a hexagram with a yod inside, and a cross on one side, and “EGO ALPHA ET OMEGA” on the other.  The standard wand from the Trithemius ritual, except using oak instead of ebony (because I’m not that resourceful).   Nothing too spectacular here.
• Wand of Homer.  This was fun, and I really liked how it turned out: a wand bearing the Golden Chain of Homer on one side (an alchemical symbol describing the process of manifestation from and reunion with the Divine Source that is the Great Work of the alchemists) and the symbols for salt, mercury, sulfur, and azoth (the four alchemical principles) on the other.  Made of oak as well, I stained it with ebony (though it didn’t take as well as I’d hoped), inlaid it with gold leaf, capped the ends with brass, and set a crystal point on top.  It’s got a different feel than my other wands, and I almost don’t want to get rid of it.
• Sets of runes and geomantic figures (geomes).  These are small little things, sets of wooden tokens with the Elder Futhark or the geomantic figures on them, for use in divination.  The store’s had a dearth of divination supplies, and apparently runes are in high demand, so I made three sets of those and one of the geomantic figures.  I’m going to borrow Les Cross‘ term for the figures, “geomes”, since that works pretty well and gives it a cooler sound.

Check out the pictures below, also put up on the Crafts page, for closer looks.  If you’re friends with me on Twitter or Facebook (yes, I succumbed and got another account after two and a half years, mutter mutter), you probably saw pictures of the unfinished projects as I made them.  If you’re in the area, consider stopping by Sticks and Stones and making a purchase!  If not, be it known that I take commissions now, so if you’re interested in something like this or something original, send me an email (polyphanes at gmail) and let’s talk about it.  Once we get the details sorted out and the design finalized, I’ll make it, you pay me, I’ll ship it, and you get it.

And the crafting isn’t quite over yet, either; a friend of mine who attended one of my workshops is gifting me an actual Gabon ebony dowel to make into a wand.  I cannot express how grateful and omg excited I am over this thing, not to mention the ebony shavings and sawdust they saved to use in future crafting projects (waste not, want not).  Plus, another two crafts for friends for gifts are in the works, a special type of summoning circle/ritual focus connected to a well-known dreamworld and a special cane with alchemical symbols and a poem in ancient Chinese script (bronze script and oracle bone script).

Custom Wandmaking and Commissions

Given that this is my blog, I feel quite free and enabled to post goddamn whatever the hell I want using as many expletives as my little heart desires.  So, the posts here range from ancient Mediterranean rituals to modern energy work to politics and anywhere in between (especially the in between).  Some of my posts are dedicated to the crafts, tools, and other things I make in the course of the Work, and there’s even multiple pages dedicated to some of the more significant projects I’ve done (check them out under the Crafts menu above, while you’re at it).

I knew it was only a matter of time, but someone recently commissioned them for a custom occult item, a hardwood wand largely following the Trithemius model but with a few design differences and the use of custom ingredients, celestial empowerment, and hard-to-obtain materials to enhance the wand’s power.  Despite some unexpected oddities in the results, I’m pleased overall with the production.  I just hope the owner of the wand says the same!

Not a lot of people know that I’m more than happy to take commissions for occult crafts, mostly because I don’t advertise it.  So, let this post be the official announcement that I’m open to take commissions for occult crafts, tools, talismans, and other artefacts of the Great Work.  Depending on the commission and the time, I may not be able to take it up or might refer you to someone with more appropriate skills than mine, but if you have a hankerin’ for some polyphanic productions, send me an email (polyphanes at gmail) and tell me about your ideas.  Once we get the details, design, and circumstances of creation settled down and out of the way, I’ll get you a quote and we can go from there.

I may eventually get an Etsy page or something, like some of my other friends are suggesting, but in the meantime I’m content with making a few things here and there and selling them at the local spirituality store where I also do readings, Sticks and Stones in Fairfax, VA (which you should totally visit at some point if you’re in the area, especially on Sunday afternoons).

A Real Caduceus

Hey, guys, have you heard that I’m on something of a Hermes/Mercurial kick lately?  I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it anywhere, but working with the dude is kinda awesome.

I mentioned before that I hastily made a wand (cane, more like) for use in my work with Hermes, especially in being a psychopomp.  It was a simple walnut dowel that I had rubbed in with spirit oil and a Mercurial balm I originally made for my caduceus tattoo (olive oil, beeswax, and eight herbs associated with the sphere of Mercury) with some minor woodburning.  It was a really simple thing, and though it helped out for my first venture out in the graveyards, it was still a little too…well, boring for my tastes.  Besides, with it being unshod on the bottom, the staff could easily be damaged or harmed, and it didn’t look like anything special for a distance.  While mulling over ideas for elaborating it, I came up with a plan  and made the simple wand into something much more resembling a real caduceus, just omitting the real snakes and wings.

• I woodburned four rings around the top and bottom of the staff, leading to eight rings total.
• I got four yards of decorative cord twisted with gold thread, two each of white cord and black cord.  I drilled a hole near the top of the staff, threaded them through so that each cord had equal parts on both sides leading to four cords “emanating” from the staff.   These would act as the two snakes of the caduceus, one white and one black, one front and one back.
• To keep the cords from fraying, I used a Fransiscan monk’s knot at the end of each cord, looping the cord back on itself four times and tying each knot around a (fake) gold ring.  The rings give the staff a bit of a flare, as well as link it to the khakkhara or shakujo, the monk’s staff used in East Asian Buddhism, as well as to the bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha, who also plays a role as psychopomp and guide not unsimilar to Hermes.
• I twisted the cords around the staff so that they each made four loops around in a double helix pattern, then “locked” them into place with four square knots.  This helped in keeping the cords managably short as well as giving the look of two snakes twisted around the staff, just as in the iconic caduceus.  And, just as in my tattoo, this leads to eight loops and eight knots total around the staff.
• I took a small wooden sphere with a hole drilled out in the bottom to fit on the top of the staff to act as a knob handle as well as a finial for the caduceus.   Before I glued it on, I woodburned in a spherical form of a quadrupled Mercury symbol I had a brief insight of while thinking about the design, which on a 2D plane looks something like this:
  
  I adapted this to the sphere by connecting the crossbars on each of the legs from the circle and having the crescents meet up on the connected circle.  I also added four dots under the meeting tips of the crescents between the legs of the crosses, just for style.  If I were to draw it out on a 2D surface with the circle for the staff insert as the boundary circle for the symbol, it’d look like this:
  
  It looks pleasingly abstract, like something from Myst or Portal, which is appropriate in either case.
• I got a brass cap, golden in color to match the cords and the rings, and put it on the butt of the staff to prevent damage to the wood.  Brass, being a mixture of metals, is perfect for mercurial work.
• I rubbed in more of the Mercurial balm onto the light pine (?) handle after staining it a color closer to the walnut, as well as lightly rubbing in some oil I made specifically for Hermes himself (kinda like Alchemy Work’s Hermes Oil).  This was to help protect the wood as well as imbue the whole thing with magical force to help it better resonate with any Hermaic or Mercurial work I do.

Overall, I’m highly pleased with how this project turned out.  You’ll also notice that the number four keeps popping up, four being the divine number associated with Hermes, who was born on the fourth of the lunar month and also given the fourth day of the week, Wednesday.  This is half that of the magical number associated with the sphere of Mercury (8), but since this is more of a divine tool instead of a magical tool, it’s probably better to aim towards the smaller of the two numbers, even though they’re so closely intertwined anyway.

Now that the whole thing’s been finished, I plan on officially consecrating and dedicating it to Hermes and his service.   My idea is to present it to Hermes during his monthly devotion and officially dedicate it to him then, repeating the Homeric Hymns once and Orphic Hymns four times each day for four days.  After this, and if he’s amenable to it, I plan to conjure Raphael of Mercury and consecrate the staff under the powers of the sphere of Mercury for eight days as I would any other talisman or magical item.  This may not be needed, depending on how Hermes wants to work with the wand himself, but the magical consecration would help tie it in closer to Mercurial currents of power.

Quick Update

So, before I head on out for the holidays with the family, I wanted to make a quick update of a few recent events and results.

1. The Lunar Kamea and Bhaiṣajyaguru (Medicine Buddha) Cane are completed.  Pictures of them are up under Crafts, as is a page just for the cane project.  Major thanks to Blue Flame Magick for help with the Buddhaworking.  Now I just need to find a friend with a south-facing window for leaving the Kamea and a ring in for a lunar cycle; if push comes to shove, I suppose I could use my car parked in an advantageous spot, but…eh.
2. I also put up a picture of my Trithemius cane on the Crafts page; I made it about a month and a half ago, an extra-large size wand to be used in conjurations with a few personal flourishes of my own.  It’s hard to get something like that to show in a single picture, but it’s subtle enough to be carried around in public without too many weird looks while still being a nifty magical weapon in its own right.  It follows the Trithemius style, but instead of “EGO ALPHA ET OMEGA” on the back, I incorporated the word Azoth around the wand to mean the same thing but better.  Here are some more pics of that, if you’re interested.  The cane works well in conjurations and definitely has a noble or regal feel to it, though it’s awkward to use inside given its size (38″).

   

   

   

   

   
   

   

   

   

   

   
   
   
3. Finally got the apartment quiet!  Turns out the best magic is the most direct, which in this case was writing a respectful note to the neighbor downstairs (an 80-odd year old hard-of-hearing sweet/badass lady).
4. Calamus root and dragon’s blood resin acquired!  Abramelin and Fiery Wall of Protection oils will be made upon my return to Villa Polyphanae.
5. I finally got off my ass and memorized the Headless Rite (or Bornless Ritual).  After seeing it pop up practically daily for two months, I figured the cosmos was sending me a hint or two or thirty.  Voces magicae ftw, and I also made myself a little pendant (pewter medallion engraved with a dremel) with the “beneficial sign” from the PGM text to use the Rite with.  I’m using a variation I wrote up based on the PGM text, Crowley’s Liber Samekh, and other variants I’ve come across.  I’ve got an emphatic green light from my genius to start using it, so here goes.
6. In the process of researching the PGM, I also picked up a few other spells and workings that I’ll put to use soon and write up my results with.  Not gonna lie, it’s kinda hot that I’m doing the same spells that were used 2000 years ago.
7. I’m teaming up with The Bad Witch over at Open Path Sanctuary to write up a series of articles on geomancy.  They’ll be available both at OPS and on The Digital Ambler, but you should totally go to OPS first because duh.  They should be out by year’s end, if I get the time and research done on the finer points of technique and history.

Have a happy Christmas, Chanukkah, Solstice, Yule, whatever; just be happy and be good.  I’ll be back sometime late next week, and probably won’t have much to post until the New Year (unless said posts are New Year New You-related and/or I have free time while with my family).  Check out my Twitter feed (on the right, and also here) for humorous interludes if you’re that bored.