How I Read Tarot

I spent some time with other magicians this weekend.  This has become a rare treat in my life (although, hopefully, that will change soon.  I've been putting A LOT of effort into this aspect of my life.)  Among other things, we did a few tarot readings for each other.  That reminded me that the way I read tarot is a little differently than the way other people do.  So, I thought I'd try to write about that.  The most important part, is that I think of a reading as a conversation between the questioner and the cards, mediated through the me and the cards.  Except for at the very beginning, I don't often use a traditional "lay" where each position signifies something.  Instead, I converse with the cards, asking questions, and then pulling cards to form a narrative response.  My interpretation of each card is based partly on the kabbalistic symbolism and traditional meaning of each one, but also on the narrative contained in the picture.  I usually read with the Rohrig tarot, which has very detailed, symbol-dense, emotionally evocative pictures.  I cannot recommend it highly enough.  After more than a decade out of print, you can now buy decks directly from the artist.  However, this method will work with any deck (although it's harder when the pips don't have pictures); use your favorite.

The system described below is for an issue that the questioner would describe as "complicated"; one that touches on many aspects of their life.  For a straight-forward question/problem, I wouldn't do all this.

1) Shuffle the cards, while asking the Divine to speak through me to provide clear, insightful, inspiring, useful advice.
2) Part way through shuffling, ask the questioner to carefully formulate a question in their mind, and then blow it into the cards, the way you'd ask a pretty girl to blow luck into your dice before rolling.  I explain it to them just like that.  (Hermes taught me this trick.  It works very well.)
3) Shuffle the cards one more time, then ask the questioner to cut.
4) Deal one card.  Briefly describe the card's general meanings, and any special symbols that jump out at me.  Ask the questioner if that seems like a fair significator of their question. Remind them that it might not summarize the whole issue, but rather indicate a key "point of attack".   If they do not consent to the significator, ask them to tell me their question out loud, or as much of it as they feel comfortable.  Reshuffle the cards, then have them blow and cut.  Try again.  If it fails three times is a row, then I just apologize and quit.
5) Deal cards to the left, top, right, and bottom of the significator to represent the Earthy, Airy, Firey, and Watery aspects of the issue.
6) The Earth card generally represents home, family, and money, but sometimes also physical health.
7) The Air card is often career (especially for students, teachers, engineers, writers, and other mental types).  It can also be an indicator of what the person thinks about the situation.
8) The Fire card talks to a person's Will.  It's sometimes about sex.  For magicians, it's often about their magical practice.  For artists, this is almost always about their art.  If a person has a "calling", this is where you'll hear it.  
9) The Water card is about emotions.  In my experience, it's nearly always about a person's love life, but sometimes about their relationships with other people, or about other feelings.  I often get cards related to loneliness here.  Whether this is just me projecting my life onto other people or a deep problem in our society, I don't know, but it seems to me that a disturbing number of people ache with loneliness and purposelessness a lot of the time. (in my experience, which is overwhelmingly reading for people at a similar "stage of life" as I am.  Namely, 20s and 30s, single or with young families, usually early career or still "finding themselves").

The reason I do this broad elemental "overview" of what's going on with the person is that it helps me get the "lay of the land" of all the things going on related to the question, and can help bring to light the ACTUAL issue at play, which isn't always the one the person thought it was.

The questioner often wants to jump in to provide more details while reading these four cards.  I usually ask them to wait until I finish all four.  Otherwise, it's VERY hard to not try to cold read them, which screws it all up.  then you end up telling them what they want.expect to hear, which is almost never what they need to hear.  I also remind them that, so far, we're just investigating the issue as it stands, not looking for any advice on what to do about it or predictions about how things will play out.  Sometimes, it will be clear that they want to focus on one of the elements; often not the one that I would have suspected.  Sometimes the reading needs to touch more than one or all the corners.

If the reading is going to focus on one of the elements, then I move the 5-spot to somewhere that allows me to "build" out of that corner (sometimes that means spinning the whole 5-spot around).  I lay down cards one at a time, and build a narrative that explain what can be done about the issue in question.  If a card doesn't make sense to me, I ask for clarification (or confirmation, if it's surprising), and then pull another.  I keep going until I'm satisfied all is done.

I'd like more practice reading "from afar".  If you'd like a free reading, please comment below AND message me on facebook.

Pan & Ishtar, Baphomet & Babalon

As I think most of you know, I've done some work in the past with Ishtar & Pan as paired gods, both in heiros gamos, and in other ways as well.  Pan's role, to my way of thinking, is primarily as a god of wild places; rugged mountains, deep forest glades, hidden pastures.  A god of unknown places and unchecked wilds.  Like Hermes, Pan's cult arose  in Arcadia.  Hermes, in fact, is usually understood to be Pan's father.  This fact is rather odd, as Pan is also considered to be older than all the Olympians.  I understand it thus:  Hermes is not literally Pan's father.  Rather, Hermes is the one who introduced Pan to the world, who coaxed him from his wild, enticing him with to the sweetness of human offerings (and human women), teaching him the excitement of human-watching.  Likewise, Hermes taught us of Pan, his shaggy wild-eyed, storm-hearted friend.  Like Gilgamesh and Enkidu, Hermes and Pan as a pair represent the partnership of man's creation and nature's.  Like with Gilgamesh and Enkidu, it doesn't end well for nature.

There is an amazing fact about Pan that so many modern pagans do not know.  Pan, perhaps alone among the Greek pantheon, is dead.  His death was announced during the reign of Tiberius (10-40ish CE), and much lamented.  What occasioned this is not entirely understood, but may have been sparked by native Greek's misunderstanding of the cult of Tammuz(*), the great Grain god of the near east, who yearly dis and arises.  However, there is another sense in which Pan is dead.  There are now so few places in the world that are not controlled by humans, Pan no longer has much of a "natural habitat".  And so he retreated, but, like every dying god, he rises.  Pan, like all things he controls, and grown and moved and shifted, to become a god of creativity and sexuality, of creation and generation.  Nature always conquers, in the end.  The Wild cannot always be tamed.

In a new age, he is called Baphomet, the sabbatic goat.  The throbbing, humming power of the Old Powers of the Earth.  Baphomet, the double helix king.  Baphomet, the blind yearning, the lifeblood of the world that unites every living thing. Baphomet, the Evolver.

Similarly, Ishtar, the Light of the World, the Queen of Heaven and Earth, the patron of Babylon, is a goddess all about conquering.  She, the Queen of the Earth, expands her control to the Heavens, and, in her most famous myth, descends into the underworld to attempt to conquer that as well. (This conquest is thwarted by her sister, Ereshkigal.  Even the greatest of creative power cannot overcome Death.)  Ishtar's cult, centered in Babylon, the Holy and Eternal City, the navel of the world, the City That Never Sleeps.  Just as Pan is a god of natural growth, Ishtar is the goddess of man-made growth of progress and innovation.  And yet, Babylon too fell, and Ishtar receded into history, but not before she too grew and changed.  Ishtar has become a goddess of luxury and decadence, of female-power and voluptuousness.  When people rail against this, when they lament the power of the City, and the decadent and sinful ways, they call her by her new name,  "Babalon", they say, "the queen of inequity, the temptress, the Whore!"

And so the old gods arise anew,  Baphomet and Babalon, the old gods made new.  Wild Growth and Human Growth, Evolution and Innovation.


(*) This connection is particular interesting in light of the connection between Pan and Ishtar I'm making.  Tammuz was the great love of Ishtar's life, and it is she that causes his death.

The Fifth Book of Abramelin: A Novel

This is a bit of the first draft of the book I'm working on. What do you think?

-----------------
June 12, 1443

Lamech could not sleep.  He slipped out of bed, tied his robe about him, and snuck outside into the courtyard.  The rush of air was cool on his face, a sweet caress after the oppressive heat of his bedroom.  He leaned his back against the ancient oak.  When they were young, his sister and he had played at being Sarah and Abraham under that tree, imagining it to be the Terebinth of Mamre.  They had played Moshe and Miriam at the banks of the sea, he pounding the ground with a magic staff, she singing and dancing around him and the tree both.  He felt its bark against his back, scratchy and familiar.  And then he remembered the other game, the one they learned from their mother, the game of being the tree.

He slowed his breath and felt the world fall away, imagining his roots sinking into the ground, winding around the rocks, deeper and deeper into the black earth.  He imagined he grew taller and taller, his branches spreading.  The moonlight felt strange and warm on his shivering leaves.  The feelings grew more and more real, until then he shook his head and laughed.  Imagine!  A grown man of 23 playing at being a tree!  

He opened his eyes, and looked up at the sky.  The moon hung low and full over the western horizon, but it was as red as blood.  The rabbis taught that lunar eclipses were poor omens, a time for prayer and atonement.  And yet...and yet... Lamech could not help but think the moon, however inauspicious, really was very beautiful this way.  He closed his eyes, and began, slowly and quietly, to chant the psalm which sanctifies the moon.  He gave praise to G-d and all his angels, to the sun and the moon, to the glittering stars high above and the roiling sea monsters deep below.  Just as he began to praise the fire and the hail, he caught most delicious smell on the air, and the words of the psalm evaporated from his mind, leaving only the smell.  

At first, it was sweet milk, thick with honey and spice, but the scent slipped and shifted in his mind, darting in wide circles like a glittering fish.  He smelled the rich green of the forest, he smelled mist rising and rain falling, he smelled lightning.  He smelled bitter beer and roasting nuts, sweet blackberry wine and the herbal smell that clung to his sister’s hair and clothes when she came home from the apothecary.  Beneath all those smells, however, was something else, pulsing and squirming, dancing and laughing, playing through his mind like a lover.  The smell pulled at Lamech, embracing and caressing him, and he forgot the beautiful bad-luck moon entirely.  

Slowly, the smell seemed to descend and solidify.  Lamech opened his eyes, expecting...what exactly?  He laughed at himself,  playing at trees, expecting to see smells? "What," he wondered, "could a smell possibly look like?"  And then he saw the way the moon illuminated the oak tree, and he caught his breath.  The leaves rustled, although the air was quite still.  The moonlight, still beautiful and eerie, fell in a perfect circle at the tree’s base, and Lamech imagined there must be a magical treasure buried there, and inheritance of angels.  The idea was absurd, a child’s story, and yet he couldn’t shake it.  He went inside, and found a spade.

An hour later, dawn cresting over the roof, sweaty and dirty from digging, Lamech held the box his hands.   He lifted the lid with some difficulty.  Its time in the earth had made the wood swell and warp a little.  And yet, the box had served its function, the book inside was clean and dry, wrapped in several layers of old linen.  The book had no title; the cover an unbroken expanse of deep red, the color of cherries and fresh blood.

Lamech was not a reader; he simply had no head for it.  Whenever he tried, the letters swam and danced, mocking him.  He knew he was not stupid, he was the quick enough to learn things when they were explained to him.  He was not illiterate, he could do well enough to pray and even learn a little Torah, but he knew that he would never be a scholar.  Still, though, that his magical treasure turned out to be a book seemed something of a perverse joke.

As he opened it, the pages crackled like crispy chicken skin.  Sarah was a good cook; her knowledge of herbs extended to the flavorful as well as the medicinal.  Her sabbath chicken were moist and delicious, but their skin was never crispy the way mother’s had been.  Lamech stared at the first page and slowly began to read.

Abramelin

The Book of the

Holy Magic

written by

Abraham, the son of Simon

for my infant son, Lamech

Lamech had never known his father.  His mother’s pregnancy had greatly scandalized the town.  Had she not been a midwife, she never would have been permitted to bear a child still unwed, but she refused to marry and had never revealed the identity of the twins’ father, not even to Lamech and Sarah, though they had begged and begged.  As a child, Sarah invented all sorts of fantastical tales about their father.  She imagined that he was rich and famous, a scholar, perhaps a great magician.  On one occasion, she had insisted that their father was none other than the Holy Rabbi, Yaakov Levi!  Their mother, who was never angry or abrupt, had slapped Sarah full across the face for that one.   

He turned the page and began, with great difficulty, to puzzle out the dense small script.  “This is the book of the true practice of Magical Wisdom.  It has been passed to me -- Abraham, the son of Simon, son of Judah, son of Simon -- by oral tradition.  Some parts of this book were given to me by my father and other wise, studied, practicing people.  The other parts of this book contain things that I have learned, discovered, and tested by making great events occur.  I have written this manuscript and placed it in a chest son that my youngest son, Lamech, will have a special treasure as his inheritance.  My firstborn son Joseph received from me the holy Kabbalah.  From this book, my natural son, Lamech, will be able to see, recognize, and use the wonders of God.”

Crucible! (Part 1)

I've just returned home from Crucible, an amazing magical convention in Princeton, NJ run by Arthur Moyer.  This is my VERY subjective, slightly fictionalized narrative of what happened.  Why slightly fictionalized?  Well, I want to try to capture my inner experience of how things seemed and felt to me, rather than to report on exactly what happened. While I didn't outright lie anywhere, I've left out some bits and emphasized others to try to capture the "essence" of my experience.  I'll try to be really careful to explain what's real and what's subjective, especially when it involves other people.

I think, to really grok this, you're going to need a little background:  Two years ago, I participated in Andrieh's first Crucible Mass of Chaos Baphomet.  That, however, wasn't the first time I summoned Baphomet.  The first time was in a steam tunnel under Caltech in 1996.  But, that's a whole different story.  In Andrieh's ritual, you trade your limitations for magical power.  During the ritual, I was asked to give up something.  I knew I had to give it away.  I'd been told so (more gently) by other of my spirits several times over the preceding few months.  But I just couldn't.  (Although I eventually did.  It was best for both of us.)

Two weeks later, my parents died.  I am IN NO WAY saying the ritual caused their death (and they're not the thing I was told I had to give up.)  I'm just explaining that my "Dark Night of the Soul" was in many ways bookended by this Baphomet ritual.

Another thing you should know; Crucible is always (coincidentally) near the Jewish High Holy Days.  This year it fell on Yom Kippur.  In addition to all the spiritual/energetic sorts of things about that, it means I was fasting the whole time.  That's going to be relevant as it gets later and later in the day and my state slowly alters.

So, I got in around 4pm on Friday, and went for a walk on the grounds.  The hotel we were at this year is beautiful, with wooded grounds and a pond.  I walked for a while by myself, and then for a while with some others.  It was lovely.  I went inside, ate dinner, and took a shower, wherein I banished and prepared for the fast.  I then went socializing with people, which was nice.

After that, Andrieh taught me some secret magical techniques which I am not allowed to tell you about.  This was in preparation for my role as an assistant magician at this year's Baphomet conjuration.  After the lesson, which was exhausting, I eventually made my way to bed.  Because I'm used to waking up very early, I can rarely manage to sleep past dawn.  Saturday was no exception.

That morning, I did some more walking in the woods.  As I walked, I came across a patch of some sort of yellow plant interspersed among the grass.  It formed a path leading into the woods.  A fairy path if ever I saw one!  So, I followed it.  After some time, the path was blocked by a fallen tree, a tangled hedge entwined with morning glory vines.  I made my way past/through/over it.  But I can't tell you what I found on the other side yet.  But soon I will be able to.

In any case, by that time, it was time to go back inside for Crucible.

I saw several interesting and informative lectures, and then I watched other people eat dinner.  By this point (5:30ish) my tummy was a little rumbly.  Jason Miller, that Sorcerer Supreme, was teasing me about fasting by enjoying his dinner.  I explained that watching him enjoy it was nearly as good as enjoying it myself.  He ate a salad, and then a cheesecake.  That looked delicious.  He asked me about fasting, and I explained that it wasn't about abstention or purity for me, it was just magical prep work for forgiving G-d.  Then I explained that I was also wrapping up a year-long vow of chastity.  Then he ate some very delicious smelling chicken.  And then he ate a chocolate cinnamon cake in a way that seemed a little more erotic than was strictly necessary.  And then he told about a Vietnamese (Thai?  I don't really remember) ritual thing where you slice open a cobra and eat its still-beating heart as a yang tonic.  Now, Jason Miller, while a little too Jupiter Optimus Maximus for my taste in mercurial men, literally wrote the book on sex magic, so, um, you know...  (This is going to be relevant later in this story.)

Right after dinner, Jason gave a great talk on Tibetan sorcery, a specialty of his, wherein he introduced us to several deities, including Karukulla, whom I understood to be a Red Goddess/Witch Queen of love, witchcraft, and, enchantment. (but that's based on, literally, like 5 minutes of Jason Miller talking)  Apparently, her name literally means "she who is the cause knowledge.” As you might expect from that name, she resonated with me a little bit. Anyhow, one point in the lecture he was explaining some sort of very technical tantric sexual energy technique, which, honestly, my brain didn't really follow at all. "energy goes out the penis, and then up her right foot, crosses through the womb into the right ovary, up the spine into her left nostril, and zing across to the right hemisphere of her brain" (or something like that).  And, this was weird... I totally felt that happen.  I mean, not in a "rock my world" kind of way, but in a definitely noticeable zingy sort of thing where something snapped to attention inside me.   (I want to remind you, dear readers, that at this point in the story, I'm a kind of high; 1 year, no sex.  20-some hours: no food or water, and almost no sleep.  And Jason eating that fucking cake.  I'm not saying that feeling had any basis in reality.)

Ok, so here's what happened next.  Jason said something funny, and from the row behind me a very big, loud, infectious laugh bubbled up.  Objectively, I understand other people might find it a very annoying sort of laugh, but I liked it.  I turned around to see who was laughing, and caught this beautiful boy's eye.  You know that thing in movies where two people lock eyes across a room?  That thing happened. I actually did a double take.  (This is probably one of those "this is what I experienced, but not what actually happened to other people" parts of the story.)

Ok, so all of these things are going on in the background of my brain, when I walk into Sam Block's amazing, fascinating lecture on Mathesis.  Basically, as I understand it, that's this crazy system of Greek/Luriatic Kabbalah system designed just for for heretical Jewish/Greek mathematicians who are also devotees of Hermes.   As near as I can tell, Hermes made Sam do all the work of developing it, and then showed it to me, because Hermes is fucking awesome, and so is Sam, and I am very lazy.  Praise Hermes!  Really, seriously, it's super awesome.  It has a cool tetract-etz chaim that's sort of like the an inside-out iggulim.  Read about it!  (Side note: everyone at Crucible seems to think I'm way more Jew-ish than I actually am.)

So, now that I've told you all that, it's time for the main event, the Baphomet ritual!  But, it's quarter past midnight and I REALLY have to go to bed, so I'm going to have to write that part up in the morning.

American Gods:The Legend of Chickie's Rock

This is a story about the land where I grew up.  I hiked this trail with my family many, many times as a child, and it was my father, also a native-born Lancastrian, who told me this tale.

If you follow the trail in the photo above, the woods will become denser and denser, more and more beautiful. After a mile or two, you will find yourself at a great rock cliff, overlooking the Susquehanna River far below. This is Chickie's Rock. The name comes the Susquehannock (an Iroquois tribe) name for the area, "Ka'ot'sch'ie'ra" (which was Anglicized, by way of German, to "Chiquesalunga"), which means "crayfish point". It is among the largest and most beautiful glacial anticlines on the east coast (or so I'm told). Here is the legend of the place, as my father told it to me when I was little.  I do not know the provenance of this myth.   It's possible my father just made it up, but more likely he embroidered and adapted it from a story he heard while growing up, as I have done here. I've heard similar tales from several other Lancastrians I knew. 

Once upon a time, when Europeans were first moving into the area, a hunter named Johann become lost in the woods.  Hungry and afraid, Johann wandered for two days, until suddenly his dog bolted off into the woods.  Johann gave chase.  As he ran, all of a sudden, the trees gave way, and there, on a magnificent cliff overlooking the river, was his dog,  curled up at the feet of the most beautiful woman Johann had ever seen.  She was tall and strong, with skin the color of clay and lustrous hair the blue black of winter midnight.  She turned, and, seeing Johann's condition, she motioned him to her fire and gave him water and blueberries.  The woman too was struck; this man so unlike any she had ever know had appeared out of the woods as if by magic!

He spoke no Susquehannock, and she no Detisch, but they found a way to communicate.  The next morning, the young woman led Johann back to his camp.  For his part, he could not get the young woman out of his head, and after a week went by, he ventured out to the secluded cliff they had shared.  Much to his surprise, he found her waiting for him!  From then on, they met every few nights.  Over time, they learned each other's language, and the woman, whose name was Chickie, took Johann back to meet her tribe, including her father, the chief, who was not best pleased at this turn of events, and forbade her to see him again.  But, of course, she did.  Months passed, and Chickie's belly began to grow full like she had swallowed the moon.

The chief was furious!  In a fit of rage, he killed Johann.  Chickie, mad with grief, ran into the woods.  The woods tried to stop her; trees lowered their branches into her path, brambles grabbed at her clothes, stones rolled themselves under her feet, but Chickie could not be stopped.  She leaped over the stones and ducked under the branches.  She ran so hard she did not notice the bramble cuts that covered her.  Arriving at the cliff, her special magical cliff, she flung herself over it, hoping to join Johann in the Land Below.  If her love was dead, why live anymore?

And yet, and yet, the woods would not permit so beautiful and devoted a daughter to die on the rocks.  As she fell, she felt herself melting and dissipating.  Slowly, slowly, Chickie and her baby turned into a cloud.  To this day, if you look out into the sky, you can her still, hanging above the river, reaching down with her sweet rain to caress Johann's bones.

Ipomoea: The Magic Plant

If I have a primary plant ally, I think it's Ipomoea.  It's a huge genus, including morning glories, moonflowers, sweet potatoes, and High John the Conqueror root.  They are extremely useful and beloved plants, for both their ornamental beauty and their culinary, medicinal, entheogenic, and magical uses. Many Ipomoea are native to the Americas; they're very common in the north eastern United States, where I live.  Traditionally, they're associated with the planet Saturn, and with binding and trapping magics (like dream catchers or spirit traps).  

Morning glories (Ipomoea violacea) have huge, round, funnel-shaped flowers and deep green heart-shaped leaves. They grow beautiful intricately tangled, amazingly strong vines.  Their seeds contain significant quantities of an LSD-like hallucinogen famous for producing visions of faeries. I have never tried it, but I'd like to. The variety pictured above is called "Heavenly Blue".  I don't know the name of the dark purple variety to the right, but it's beautiful!

Moonflowers (Ipomoea alba), pictured below, look very similar to morning glories, but with giant white (or sometimes pink) flowers that open at dusk.  The flowers unfurl so fast, you can watch it happen.  Their smell is said to promote visions and prophetic dreams.  

Sweet potato (Ipomoea batatus) is the only ipomoea that's generally used as a food.  Everyone knows what sweet potato roots look like, but many people don't know how beautiful the plant is, with green, maroon, or purple deeply lobed leaves and white and purple flowers.  

  

   

High John the Conqueror, Ipomoea jalapa, is one of the most magical of plants.  

The plant is named after an African Americn folk hero.  John the Conqueror was an African prince sold into slavery in the Americas.  Even though he was enslaved, his spirit was never broken, and he is a trickster-hero closely associated with Br'er Rabbit.  (You can listen to a song about him below.  I don't like the video, just the song.)  The roots of High John are used in both whole and in pieces.  The whole, dry roots resemble a black man's balls, making them a very potent talisman for sex spells. Bits and pieces of the root are used to make decoctions and oils, which are typically used for luck or money drawing.  

To me, the most important feature of ipomoea is its growth habit.  Morning glories grow extremely fast, producing vines that  twine and trail in spiral helices of power, winding their way up chain link fences and telephone guy lines.  They do this by violently swinging about their bud tips until they make contact with something they can wrap around.  The video above is about one week's worth of growth.

Where I live, in the US midAtlantic region, morning glory vines grow ubiquitously, climbing up trees and fences alike.  Even in the most blighted urban neighborhoods, morning glory can be found everywhere winding it's way down alleys and over fences.  To me, morning glory is a sign of the Hedge, the path between the quotidian world and the Other Place.  By following a trail of morning glories, one is brought deeper and deeper into the Hedge.

Healing a broken heart

Broken heartedness is a very real thing.  It can be caused not only by the end of a love affair, but also by the loss of a family member or friend, or even a more abstract loss, like the loss of self-identity that comes with loosing a job.  A broken heart is an actual, palpable wound to your psychic body, and it needs time and care to heal properly.  If you try to ignore the wound, or don't care for it properly, it can fester,  ultimately poisoning you from within.  We all know someone who's become so infected by the bitterness and bile from their broken heart that it slowly infects their whole soul.  And yet, we also know, deep inside ourselves, that broken hearts can and do heal, leaving us strong and whole again.  Sometimes, this process requires only time and rest. The body has a remarkable ability to heal itself with little intervention on our part.  And yet, many injuries cannot heal themselves, and so we have invented medicine.  Similarly, for psychic wounds, we have a remarkable ability to heal ourselves.  And yet, it's not always enough.  And so we invented magic.

Shortly after my parents died, I was doing some meditations where the energy body is understood as a landscape that can be travelled through.  For example, the cauldron of the womb (which I think might traditionally called the "sacral chakra" or the "dan tien") I usually imagine as a opalescent tangerine sea that feels just like a hot tub with bubble jets.  Similarly, I've always imagined the heart chakra to be a lush summer forest, like the ones I grew up with in PA.

the path to Chickies Rock in Columbia PA
(see below for the legend of Chickies Rock)

That time, while I meditated,  I began to feel the forest being cut down.  I heard the chain saws, and smelled smoke.  I couldn't stop it, and soon the forest of my heart was leveled.  And that's when I understood that a broken heart isn't a metaphor.  My heart had been broken, and required mending.

I'm going to tell you how I healed it.  In no way do I claim this is the only way, or the best way.  It's just a way that worked for me.  I've been hesitant to share this, because it seems like such an intrusive thing to talk about.  But, I wish I had read a post like this when I needed it, so here goes.  If I have time, I'll record a guided ritual this weekend.  However, I think this should be easy enough to follow...

You can split this working over several sessions if you feel that is best.  If it is easy, you're doing it wrong.  Expect this to be difficult, emotional, exhausting work.  Give yourself enough room to rest after doing it.

STEP ZERO:  Examine the Wound

Enter trance however you like.

Reach above you, up up, up, through the stars, up to the center of the universe.  Find the Light Beyond Light.  Grab hold, and pull some down, down, down into the top of your head, down through your spine, down and into your center.  Feel it fill you, pooling in your core, cool and clear and invigorating.  If you can't feel it, that's ok.  Just imagine that you can.  

Whenever you're ready, reach down, down, down.  Down to the center of the earth.  Grow roots from the bottom of your feet (or possibly out your butt) and growing down, down, down into the Center of the Earth.  Find the Heart of the World, green and warm and wet and lush.  Grab hold, and pull the feeling up, up, up.  Up through your roots, up though your legs, up into your abdomen, mixing with the starlight that's already there.

Repeat this a few times until you KNOW that the center of your body is the center of all that is, and that you stand at the middle of the universe, a pillar, strong and sure, a conduit uniting heaven and earth.

Carefully, carefully, turn your imagination toward your heart.  What does it feel like?  What does it look like?  Do you hear a sound?  Do you smell a smell?  It might be a forest, or it might be a glittering green gem.  It might be anatomical; a pulsing muscle.  It might be a symphony; it might be the smell of spring flowers.  Whatever metaphor your heart uses to communicate with you, accept it.  Examine your heart; explore whatever you find.  Locate the damage that's been done, and carefully, carefully, examine it.  This is probably going to hurt.  It's ok to cry, but get a good look at the wound.

Retreat to your center, and consult with your spirits.  Determine a course of care for your wound. This should involve three stages, each of which uses a certain elemental energy:
1) cleanse (fresh (not salt) water)
2) reset (qing) and
3) nourish (warmth).
What each of these stages looks like will depend on the metaphor your heart has chosen.  For me, the forest of my heart needed a heavy rain, washing away the ashes and preparing the soil.  I then planted new seeds, and the sun shone on them.

STEP ONE: Water 

When you're ready, take a few deep breaths, and return to your heart.  Roll your shoulders back and push your sternum forward; your breasts should spread apart.  You can try a yoga pose called the camel if you're into that kind of thing.  In any case, the goal is to imagine that your ribcage is physically opening up, and your heart is opening, folding out like a moonflower.  

Now, imagine a body of water (ok if it's salt water).  The best ones are either one in physical proximity to you or one you have a strong emotional connection to; I use the Long Island Sound, which is right down the street from me.  If you have a water-ally, call on her.  Open a connection from yourself to the water; imagine diving deep deep down under the water, to the inmost sea in its depths, the sea that connects all seas.  The river that encircles the world.  There, pore breathe in the water, feeding the water to your heart, cleaning out the wound you found before.  For me, because I imagined my heart as a forest, I delivered the water in the form of a gentle rain.  One time, I wrote some Thessaly (from Sandman) fanfiction about healing from grief.  On page 5 there's a little mediation about Love as Rain you can read if you like that sort of thing.  Objectively, it's not very good.  I was grief stricken when I wrote it.  Keep cleaning.  DO NOT examine the gunk washing away.  DO NOT attach to it.  Just let it wash away.  After a while, your heart will be clean.  Still damaged, but clean.  At this point, you can stop delivering water.  Rest for a little while.  If this hasn't been difficult and emotional, you're probably doing it wrong.

STEP TWO: Qing

Next, we're going to set the heart, the way you'd set a broken bone.  Again, depending what metaphor your heart is using to explain itself to you, this will vary a little.  For me, it's a forest, so I'm planting seeds.  Go back to the Center of the Earth, where you grounded.  There, you will find an energy called in some Chinese systems 青 (qing).  This is also the word for the broad collection of blue-green colors.  It is the energy of new-sprouting things, vegetal growth.  If you work with plant totems, this would be a great time to ask for their help.  If not, choose a special tree.  Like with the water, you should either use one in close physical proximity (it's great to do this while actually sitting under a tree), or one to which you have a deep emotional connection.  Feel the plant growing and sprouting, feel the energy that makes this possible (the "qing").  Pore breathe in that energy.  Direct that energy/feeling up to your heart, growing organically like a plant.  This will be experienced differently in different people.  Whatever seems to be happening, as long as it can be understood to be an infusion of "growth" energy into the heart, it's probably right.  In my Forest Heart, this is all about the undergrowth reasserting itself after the forest was clear-cut.  Vines twining and fragrant carpets of herbs spreading and blossoming.  Once you feel as though your heart has been stabilized, then you can stop infusing it with qing.  It can do the rest of the growing on its own.

Take a while to rest.  That was hard work!  Once you're ready, begin the final stage, warming and nourishing the heart.  

STEP THREE: Fire

Connect to the sun.  You might imagine yourself sitting on a beach, underneath the blazing sun, soaking up its warmth like a lizard.  However you do it, pore breathe in the energy of the sun, primordial warmth.  Direct this warmth to your heart, and see if you can feel the wound beginning to heal.  In my forest, that's all about the trees growing.  The first time into sprouts, but getting bigger and bigger every time I did the meditation.  Sprouts, then saplings, then trees, then the lush full forest, filling itself back in, even better than it was before.

(For me, it took about a year to stop grieving and then another year to actually get back to happy.  This helped, especially in the early months.)  So, I hope this helped you.  I dont' know if it will work for anyone but me, but it genuinely did help me.  This meditation was inspired by Bex van Koot's serpentine chakra mediations, which I highly recommend.

The Legend of Chickies Rock

If you follow the trail in the photo above, the woods will become denser and denser, more and more beautiful. After a mile or two, you will find yourself at a great rock cliff, overlooking the Susquehanna River far below. This is Chickies Rock. The name comes the Susquehannock (an Iroquois tribe) name for the area, Ka'ot'sch'ie'ra (which was Franco-Anglicized to Chiquesalunga). It is among the largest and most beautiful glacial anticlines on the east coast. Here is the legend of the place, as my father told it to me when I was little. This is NOT an Iroquois legend; it is a Lancaster legend. It's possible my father just made it up, but more likely he embroidered and adapted it from a story he heard while growing up (I have also adapted and embroidered his version). I've heard similar versions of the tale from other Lancastrians, but they may have heard it from our family.  We're good storytellers, and my mother taught first grade for many years.  Many people know our family stories.  Now you will too.

Once upon a time, when Europeans were first moving into the area, a hunter named Johann become lost in the woods. Alone and afraid, Johann wandered for two days, eating rabbits, herbs and berries, until suddenly his dog bolted off into the woods. Johann gave chase. As he ran, all of a sudden, the trees gave way, and there, on a magnificent cliff overlooking the river, was his dog, curled up at the feet of the most beautiful woman Johann had ever seen. She was tall and strong, with skin the color of clay and lustrous hair the blue-black of winter midnight. She turned, and, seeing Johann's condition, she invited him to her fire and gave him water and corn cakes. The woman too was struck; this man so unlike any she had ever known had appeared out of the woods as if by magic!

Although they could not speak each other's languages, they found a way to communicate. ;) The next morning, the young woman led Johann back to his camp. For his part, he could not get the young woman out of his head, and after a week went by, he ventured out to the secluded cliff they had shared. Much to his surprise, he found her waiting for him! From then on, they met every few nights. Months past, and the woman, whose name was Chickie, began to grow round with child. She took Johann back to her village, to meet her tribe, including her father, the chief.

The chief was furious! In a fit of rage, he killed Johann. Chickie, grief stricken, ran into the woods. The woods tried to stop her; trees lowered their branches into her path, brambles grabbed at her clothes, stones rolled themselves under her feet, but Chickie could not be stopped. She leapt over the stones and ducked under the branches. She ran so hard she did not notice the bramble cuts that covered her, or the blood that ran down her legs. Arriving at the cliff, her special magical cliff, she flung herself over it. If her love was dead, why live anymore?

And yet, and yet, the woods would not permit so beautiful and devoted a daughter to die on the rocks. As she fell, she felt herself melting and dissipating. Slowly, slowly, Chickie and her baby turned into a cloud. To this day, if you look out into the sky, you can see her still, hanging above the river.