From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese) Subject: a nice experience last night Date: 22 Sep 92 03:39:52 GMT [For more on menstruation magick, check out Shakti Woman by Vicki] [Noble. There's a review of the book in the /Books dir. --Ceci ] I'm pretty close to starting my period, and I was very worried about it last night. Why? I did somethong VERY stupid: I ate a bowl full of rice. Starch. The Death Food that just about INSURES that I'll be sticking my head in the john the next morning if I get my period. (For some reason, if I have ANY starch at all in my stomach when I start bleeding, it doesn't stay there for long.) I spent too long blaming myself and feeling angry for making such a stupid mistake, and wailing about it to poor TMM over the plates. I was such an idiot, I was going to be paying tomorrow, etc. etc. etc. I was DREADING falling asleep for fear that I'd wake up doubled over in pain, miserable and agonized, and still having to haul my sorry ass out of bed to stick my head in the john when my body shouts, "Three exits! No waiting!" to everything inside it. In short, I was scared. And I was blaming myself, convinced that even if I wasn't SUPPOSED to get my period tomorrow, my blunder and subsequent grousing would cause it to come upon me anyway. (No, I still haven't managed to get over period anxiety. The cramp bark helps, but there fear is still there. I do NOT look forward to my period, not because of the negative connotations, but because of the pain. They may be related, but I'm sorry -- sometimes your body just screws you over and gives you pain, even if you're in the most stress-frdee environment and in the best mood ever.) ANYway, after TMM left for the lab, I was faced with a choice. Go to bed scared rigid about what state I'd be in when waking up the next day, or try to allay my fears SOMEHOW. As luck would have it, I was rereading a copy of "that book" that I finally checked out of the library despite my earlier belief that I would probably never read it -- The Spiral Dance. (Yes, I like it. I'm not freaky about it, but I like it.) The vision in it, while I find it flawed in some ways, is nonetheless beautiful, and I finally decided I had had it with being so scared and it was time to do something about it. Magic is the art of "changing consciousness at will?" Okay, let's put it to the test. Haul out the tools (Tarot, chalice, salt, pentacle, stones, bark, water, cloth, etc. I don't usually use water, but this time, an idea from TSD seemed to demand use. I also don't use tools as laid out in any book; I just read about what's used and grab what I like.). Turn off the lights, light the candle, spread my pentacle (a cloth bag embroidered with a pentacle that holds the stones, and place the stones. I use five things: tiger's-eye, hematite, clear quartz, rose quartz, and a tine spiral shell. I held the stones in my right hand and transferred them one by one to my left, meditating on what the stones mean to me as I did so. I spoke out loud (quietly so as not to disturb my roommate) to myself, as I held the stones. The tiger's-eye is there to call to mind farsightedness, not to get caught up in the moment but to remember that things pass and to try to see ALL the path instead of just the rocks at my feet. The quartz is there for honesty, not to blow things out of all proportion, to retain not only farsightedness but CLARITY of vision, and ethical honesty. The rose quartz is there to remind me of the good that can come of all experiences, the beneficial hidden motivations of the mother (Diktynna for me). The shell is there to remind me, as the Desiderata says, that the universe will unfold as it should, that my path is there -- all I need do is walk it. (To digress for a moment, this reminds me of how I think when I write backwards. People don't believe me when I say I can cursive write backwards as quickly as I do forwards; all you need to do is see the words written in the air in front of you, already accomplished. All you need to do then is trace them out -- mindless and simple. Just see what you need to do as already having been done, already existing in some timeless and immense way, and it makes it easier. You just walk the path. Now as to how the path GETS there . . . ) I place the articles on the pentacle points as I wish, and then take out of one deck (I had two decks last night) the ace of pentacles and the Universe (the cards were removed from The Witches Tarot by Ellen Cannon Reed. GORGEOUS artwork!) for the initiation of a feeling and fertile cycle -- the bleeding, and the visual reminder that my mother Diktynna just does things this way. It's just the way the Universe works to make women sometimes cramp and it's nothing personal. No punishement, no guilt, just the way things work sometimes. It passes, and is done with great love. I laid a four seasons spread with Barbara Walker's Tarot, that I wove into a story of feeling beset from all sides with burdens and hardships, and Death (the King of Swords), feeling as if I had to tame something attractive and yet dangerous (The King of Wands), reaching an impasse (5 of wands) -- meaning I'm just gonna bleed and have to get used to dealing with it, finding a defense (9 of wands), and having realization of beauty and (self)love waiting for me at the end (2 and ace of cups). I sat and thought until the story could be seen as a coherent accomplished whole in my head, and then started with the salt water. Four pinches of salt (maiden, mother, crone, and the one goddess who is all of them) went into the cup of water (Irvine tap water, the only blot on an other wise great ritual :-P), and I swirled it around, watching the reflections of me dancing on the surface of the water and on the bottom of the cup. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to descend into the blob of guilt and certainty that I would somehow bring the cramps and barfing on myself by my stupidity and subsequent worrying. It wasn't exactly wonderful, but had to be done. As I did so, I just bubbled it into a thick disgusting and unwanted mud in myself and retched it into the cup. I swirled the salt water, allowing it to dissolve the filth and become clear again. I retched again, swirled again. Retch, swirl. Retch, swirl. Over and over until I no longer felt the need to barf my guilt and self-hate into the cup and purify it. Into the toilet it went. *flush* No more guilt. And damn, did I feel clean! A clean, empty shining silver vessel. I took a BIG cowrie shell and rubbed it, trying to be friends with my vulva, trying to see it as part of me and NOT an enemy out to fuck me over. I consecrated my cramp bark, and told myself that the path was there, it wasn't deliberately paved in such a way to screw me over, and all I had to do was walk it. Very deliberatedly, I cleaned up and put the things away. Imagine my surprise when I turned out the kitchen light (the only light I left on) and saw a nebulous, undefined swirl of blue gray out of my front room window. While I was off somewhere else, barfing guilt out of my system, the mother's cool night breath had descended on me and surrounded me. I went into my bedroom, cocooned and safe in Diktynna's breath, and fell asleep with a smile on my face. This is one is special to me. I think I may have found my first personal Book of Shadows entry. Blessings, Janis