Posts

Moving Around

I have decided to move things from here to Substack, where the posts can now be found at  The Silver Key  . Substack's system made importing all of my previous posts very easy for me. Things could be edited. Not all of the spaces and line breaks are there. I'm not likely to go in and edit all those little details, though, because it's still easily readable and I'm glad I didn't have to copy and paste text, upload pictures again, and change the dates on things. I've been inclined to keep things here, even after doing other writing on Substack, because I've had no big desire to promote my writing about my experiences in Yog-Sothothery. I like having things tucked away in this little corner where maybe someone will stumble across it, and maybe they won't. After using Substack for other work for a while, though, I'm feeling comfortable there and like keeping things easily accessible for myself mentally. It's just time to move.

Reeza

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My experiences in the dreamworld are growing. I'm not at a point yet where I can fully control things, but I am more frequently able to make choices that shape how the dream flows. I remember my dreams much, much more often now. When I don't remember the details, I do usually remember that I did dream and what the overall feeling of the dream was. I'm also noticing a pattern in where dreams take place. Places in my dreams repeat. Some are clearly based on places I have known in the waking world, and some I only know in the dreamworld. Dreams will happen in the same place for a few nights, then I'll have a night or two of very fuzzy dreams that I don't remember well, then I'll be in a different place. A few nights ago, I was dreaming of being in some kind of fishing village. It was a very clear, detailed dream. There were piers and walkways, but streets were pretty much replaced with creeks, narrow rivers, and canals. The town sat at the edge of a big port. Statu

The end of a project?

The last time I wrote something here, the 45 day project I was participating in was about to start. I just just finished creating something that was an important element of the project, and the creation of that item needed to be done in preparation. And now...well, it has been 45 days, so has the project ended? Yes and no. The structured project, with the ritual everyone involved in the project was doing, has ended. It's time to write up reports, combine them, pass them out, let us all see what was happening across the project as a whole. All I have to do is write my part, send it in, and study the greater results when it all gets sent out. I'm not part of combining everything and sending it out. The formal project has ended. On a personal level...maybe it's not that simple. There were things that popped up during this project that I know aren't contained to just what we've been doing for 45 days. There are also things that seem to be more personal, or at least weav

Feverish Creations

As I mentioned before, I've got a project coming up. One of the things I needed to do as part of my preparations for the project was create a ritual icon to be used in the work. I knew the symbol and colors I should be working with, but a lot of the design for the icon was left open for my personal creative process. No problem! I knew what I wanted to do, the materials to use, method, style... all good! And then the whole house got sick. I'm two or three days into this. I'm not sure. Yesterday may have been two days long, and symptoms are having an even heavier effect on me today. I would be cutting things close, but I could just wait a few more days and make the icon after the fever has passed. But then I asked myself if that was really the best plan. Again, I would be cutting things close. It would reduce my time for consecrating the icon. I really needed to make it today. In my feverish condition? Why not?! A feverish condition can open gates of its own. This might, in f

Amethyst and Garnet

I want to make some notes here about a few things, and I don't really have time right now to check and see how much of this I have or haven't said before. I am participating in NaNoWriMo, and I'm trying to get my word count as far ahead as I can earlier in the month when I have the most time for writing. Perhaps it's best that I not go back and read older posts on this right now anyway. I sometimes like seeing later how my mind explored the same topics at different times. I know I mentioned reaching the point in the Lovecraft Index books where the shining trapezohedron came into play. And that spawned my doing a little bit of looking things up (not even what I'd call "light research") about garnets. I may or may not have mentioned wearing the ring I've had for many years that has an amethyst set with a small garnet on each side of it. Okay. That brings things up to where I am today. I have some work coming up that relates to the shining trapezohedron,

Amazonite

Lovecraft dug deep into history for the inspirations for his stories. Or entities that go back deep in history reached far to inspire him. It's hard to say which. We know from his personal letters that he and his circle of writing associates laughed about how seriously some readers thought he believed the things he was writing. I'll trust his word that it was all just fun storytelling...on the surface. I think it was Stephen King who once said, "Fiction is the truth inside the lie." He might have been quoting someone else, but I'm pretty sure I read it from him, and it has stayed with me for years. Writing fiction often gives an author space to work out things they haven't recognized in themself. There are many reasons to believe Lovecraft didn't consciously believe the Old Ones actually exist, but also many reasons to believe pieces of what he created were manifestations of bigger things than just his own imagination. And maybe some of it was misguided gn

Dark Moon, Cards, and Shadow Work

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I've mentioned before that the 23rd of each month is a date that carries meaning in my practices. I consult the Temple of Abzu cards much more often than I talk about here, and I make sure I do so as part of these practices. A strange group of things came together for the 23rd of this month. The date came just a few nights after the peak of this year's Orionids meteor shower, a night before the dark moon, and during the time of year that is often described as being one of the times "the Veil is thinnest". I don't think of that Veil as being like a curtain, but more like a liminal space that cannot clearly be defined and is a boundary between worlds. A very real boundary...but not one that cannot be crossed, or that crossing it would be as simple as taking a step to go from one side to the other. It's much more than that. The Ancient Abyss An Ancestral Stargate To Stand Alone Before Eternity The Darkness Seems Light Blood Flows From The Dark Eye Dre