Journey to Ixtlan

A Tumblr blog asked readers to post lists of three. This inspired me to write the poem “To Dwell Again”.


To Dwell Again

I'll invoke the rule of threes
first the beginning and then the end
connected by the spirit’s breath
speaking words birthed from truth

reflections found in fairy tales
once upon to journey’s course
shamrocks whisper what could be
in the fields now forgotten

these triangles spoke of power
too much fortune is a curse
certain lack begets great wealth
to be lost when once it’s found

by the fall the crone remembers
who they were before the mother
innocence in distant past
a maiden asks to live again

rebirth is found in ritual’s breadth
what was born must coexist
with the life that leads to death
spirit passing to dwell again

© 2018. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20180301.

In a recent humor slanted blog I had the scientific pagans Mutt and Jeff trying out a ritual they didn't fully understand. At one point Jeff says:

You know Mutt, I was just thinking about something. What if the Moon had moved closer to the Earth? Wouldn't that have caused problems with tides and such? That might be a bad thing. Hmmm... maybe it's a good thing that the ritual didn't work. How about we move onto the next one on our list?

There is an inside joke here. I wanted to point out that merely seeing magick as a means to do things or as a 'method', and not fully understanding the consequences, can be quite dangerous. Fortunately intent is important in outcome, so a working without the right intent may fail. However... this is not always the case!

I saw this Charles Addams' New Yorker cartoon years ago. It reminds me of the point I am trying to make.

The following is an exchange of blog entries between myself and others. The topic begun by a person who defined magic as a nebulous everything. The italic words are spoken by others. The non-italic are mine. The mindset of the original poster, Asjreil, seemed to veer toward a chaotic self-serving paradigm of magic, to which I took some issue. He claimed to be satanic and live in Antartica (explaining my later reference). I also throw in some Hitchhiker Guide associations.

AsjreilWrote:
The Magic I practice cannot be defined nor understood with words.
For it can be experienced & not experienced.
It can be felt & not felt.
It can be everything & nothing.
It can be definable & undefinable.
It can be interpreted or always in mystery.


Funny... I could swear that I've read something like this in the book 'Tao Te Ching (The Way and Its Power)' by Lao-tzu. Nothing is new. It is instead merely rediscovered.

The modern equivalent of your thoughts is quantum probability. It is fine for all things to be possible. In this mode everything is possible and nothing specifically happens. It is a place of all possibilities and no creations. Magic at this point does not exist as manifestation.

It is the intent of the magician that collapses this probability wave into a singular event. The incorporeal mind-games of all-nothingness are transformed into a reality. Don't get carried away with your ego. While the magician is the observer of the event, the magician does not 'create' the event anymore than the clouds create the sky.

AntaresWrote:
I don't always agree with you, but I find you and your posts interesting. I believe magick is part of the workings of the universe, a lot of it just can't be explained scientifically at the moment. We are a part of the universe, or God, and as such we have the power of free will to change and manipulate if we want (within the limits of nature.) If we are part of God, we are God. The power we can choose to access comes from the universe as a whole.

In my world, the true magick comes for my acknowledgement and understanding of my place in the world. While I don't fully understand how things work, I do know they can work. How do I know they work? Experience. Joy, pain, boredom, happiness, excitement, anger and love. The greatest of these is love.

I love a good game of mental masturbation. It can be fun diversion. The catch is that the mental games don't replace truly living life by participating in the workings of the universe. Antarctica is a fun place to visit, but one shouldn't live their entire life there.

AsjreilWrote:
I would love to hear people's definition of magic, for me it is beyond undefinable but not beyond experience.

My definition is in a previous reply ("In my world, the true magick comes for my acknowledgement and understanding of my place in the world. "). Your definition reminds me of 'The Heart of Gold':

"The Heart of Gold was the prototype ship for infinitely improbable travel. The principle is that as its drive reaches infinite improbability, the ship passes simultaneously through every point in the universe. It is then possible to decide at which point you actually want to be at when improbability levels decrease.

Unfortunately human beings are accustomed to traveling at normality (probability 1:1), and can be fairly distressed by events around them whilst the improbability drive is working: losing limbs, turning into sofas, planets spontaneously becoming fruitcakes, nuclear missiles metamorphosing into sperm whales and bowls of petunias, and so forth. The starship Heart of Gold was somewhat insulated against this by having an improbability-proof drive room, allowing the pilots to remain more or less normal during the flight."

The experienced but indefinable cannot be a harmoniously shared experience. You, as the pilot of your own Heart of Gold, are insulated. Meanwhile, the rest of us are turning into penguins, loosing limbs, and seeing the buildings go up and down while the ocean remains still. This is not cool to me.

Basically I am saying that is all good and well to be indefinable, very mysterious and all, but it side-steps the responsibility of the power of magick. This responsibility goes beyond good and evil. It is instead rooted in a respect for a common experience/existence. Your definition smacks of a self-serving magick that is a danger to others.

BTW, these are great thoughts that you are sharing. They are merely floating somewhere above the realm of manifested reality - a feature common to most magick definitions.