Pular para o conteúdo principal

A New Beginning; a New End





No matter ones creed, belief - or placement in time and space – it is always good to take regular times to pause and recapitulate. If this is not an ongoing process, at least the turning of the year is a good occasion to do so. It doesn’t matter that the New Year actually begins with the entering of Aries in the sign of the Sun or with Capricorns entering in the Sun – both the Ram and the Goat signals something worthy of contemplation.  Yet other cultures count the solstices as markers of renewal. They are both animal signs heralding new beginnings. Heralding the new should bring a death to the old. Parts of the old should be transmuted, other parts taken as lessons so we can count our blessings.

The Western New Year falls anyhow within the perimeters of the rays of the fixed star Deneb Algedi, the tail of Capricorn. Cauda Capricorni is one of the fifteen fixed stars and is evoked by the scent of marjoram. If the moon is favorable it gives victory in disputes and safety of home. Its starry sigil gives us the idea of the saltire or St. Andrew’s cross providing a key for an enclosure that can be a home or a coffin.  

The key to coffin or home is a good imagery for the constant contemplation, and as the year turns it is good to contemplate what doors we seek to open and which we seek to shut. Deneb Algedi is the true ‘wishing star’. When we at the fireworks of the New Year bring oath and solemn promises, hopes and declarations – it is all under the auspices of this star that binds what you seek to bind and what opens what you seek to open – that you raise your glass and welcome the New.

It doesn’t matter your creed, belief - or place – the spirit of home and renewal embodied in welcoming the New is something good in itself. We can say farewell to trespassing and failures and we can welcome their lessons. We can use these lessons to build our path onwards or we can retreat and gain the key to the coffin. As the New blazes, the Fates give back their thread and key, and so imprints can be made. And it is in this moment we become Fates’ master.

We become, by word and deed, the smith of our own fortune, alas, fortune is a swinging wheel that can only be understood if we approach her with interest. Only in this way we can gain her favor and only in this way we can forge our soul, life and city. In this process we become murderers, as we assault our own weaknesses or those of others, others wrongdoings or our own. There is no proposition denominating ownership here, it is just the blind act of the balance and the scale. This blind act gives you the opportunity of taking what is yours and also it is about forgiving and forgetting what is yours as well as of the others…
  
The saltire, the Cross of Andrews martyrdom gives cause for pause. He asked to be martyred on this cross that stretches towards the mid-quarters, not finding himself worthy of the pole, the axis. But it was also about recognizing that death and its own mystery that supports life in all directions, a pulse and a breath. Life as death makes part of living in so many levels.
    
Life is a continuum of death – and death is nothing but a chain of transmutations – all is kept, and nothing is lost as we make our path and face our challenges. These are moments where we open the vaults of coffin and home. So, what will you do with the key to your own Fate, will you unlock coffin or home?

Renewal is a chance to clear the weed and bring the blessings of the past forward. It is an opportunity to burn bridges and let go of deeds and people that impair the path of abundance. It is a time for giving the bad and malevolent to the coffin so the beautiful and loving can resurrect as a compass on the path.

It is a time for us to give honor to the undying Sun and the earth we walk, because if it was not for Her we would not be, if it was not for He, we would not be. We need to gather together in harmony, because as earth supports our steps in life, so does our blessed friends in this human journey. Our friends, the quiet ones or the loud ones, our friends, being in flesh or air – it is all about the gathering of abundance, that marks the path of prosperity and breakthrough.

As Òyèkú Méjì says:

Òrúnmiìlà ní bá di igbó
Mo ní ó di bá igbó ni
Igbó ni áà ehan
Igbó ni àá bá esi
A ki ri anìkarìn nadunadu
A ki ri anìkarìn nadunadu
A ki ri anìkarìn yunrè
Ifá ní a bá di igbó, kò si n’òkn rin

In Karenga’s translation:

Orunmila says there should be a gathering
Together like trees do to for a forest
I sat there should be a gathering together
We find monkey in groups
We find wild pigs in groups
We don’t even find “one who keeps silent”
Walking alone
Nor do we find the greedy one walking alone
Ifa says we should gather together and not walk alone

So, let us gather together in harmony, let our wishes bring death to what have been bad and also the gift of wisdom to take the lesson from the passing year, so we can be crowned with blessings as we forge the path onward! And let us do it in the spirit of Ifá or in the spirit of Lawrence Ferlinghetti – but let us gather in harmony.

The World Is a Beautiful Place

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind happiness
not always being
so very much fun
if you don't mind a touch of hell
now and then
just when everything is fine
because even in heaven
they don't sing
all the time

The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn't half bad
if it isn't you

Oh the world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't much mind
a few dead minds
in the higher places
or a bomb or two
now and then
in your upturned faces
or such other improprieties
as our Name Brand society
is prey to
with its men of distinction
and its men of extinction
and its priests
and other patrolmen

and its various segregations
and congressional investigations
and other constipations
that our fool flesh
is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all
for a lot of such things as
making the fun scene
and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
and singing low songs and having inspirations
and walking around
looking at everything
and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
and even thinking
and kissing people and
making babies and wearing pants
and waving hats and
dancing
and going swimming in rivers
on picnics
in the middle of the summer
and just generally
'living it up'
Yes
but then right in the middle of it
comes the smiling

mortician

Postagens mais visitadas deste blog

The ‘firmeza’ of Quimbanda

Quimbanda is a cult centred on the direct and head on interaction with spirit, hence developing mediumistic skills and capability in spirit trafficking is integral and vital to working Quimbanda. Possession is a phenomenon that intrigues and also scares. After all we have all seen movies like The Exorcist and other horror thrillers giving visual spectacles to how hostile spirits can take over the human body, mind and soul in intrusive and fatal ways. But possessions do find a counterpart in the shamanic rapture as much as in the prophet whose soul is filled with angelic light that makes him or her prophetic. Possession is not only about the full given over of your material vessel to a spirit that in turn uses the faculties of the medium to engage various forms of work. Inspiration, dream and to be ‘under the influence’ are potentially valid and worthy avenues for connecting with spirit. Yet another avenue for good spirit trafficking is the communion, or what Jake Stratton-Kent ca

A Quimbanda FAQ

In this article I will try to answer some questions concerning Quimbanda that surfaces with frequency. Questions concerning how to work this cult solitary and somehow dislocated from the cultural climate of understanding here in Brazil are frequently asked as are questions concerning the magical tools, such as guias, patuás and statues, available to the general public. I want to be initiated in Quimbanda, how do I proceed with that? When we speak of initiation in the perspective of Quimbanda we are speaking of a true and intense merging with spirit that involves a pact/agreement, a spirit vessel (assentamento), ordeal and oath. There are elements used in this process that are common to every house/terreiro/cabula/lineage of Quimbanda that reveals a common origin. There are different varieties of Quimbanda in Brazil, and the expression of the common root, will always depend of the constellation of spirits we find in the tronco. In other words, a ‘Casa de Exu’ that is dominated

Luxuria: The Seven Sins - part II of VII

"But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." - James 1: 14 - 15 -      Luxuria , or better known as lust is by John Cassian understood to be the very womb of sin and death in accordance with James 1. Whereas pride/hubris is the seed of sin, lust is the womb of the sinful seed. Today the word ‘lust’ carry an overtly sexual and hedonist flavor and in truth one of the predecessors of ‘luxuria’ is found in the activity related to porneia or prostitution, but more than this, luxuria is a thymus , an appetite. Perhaps the most proper idea that still carries on the inherent idea of ‘luxuria’ is actually luxury – in other words, an excess. In Antiquity as in galenic medicine all disease was caused by excess of something, in the cause of ‘luxuria’, we are speaking of an excess of pleasing oneself. This self pleasing is of a nature tha