Comments | ulbh: Brief update on Starfest

ulbh

Brief update on Starfest

May 31, 2005 14:33

There's a ton of stuff I could write about. We decided to "do" Starfest this year without vending, which meant we weren't tied down to our campsite/booth at all (and that I had the gazebo to cook and lounge in). I treated the festival as a spiritual retreat and got all I bargained for.

In no particular order:

Fantastic time of communion with Lili ( Read more... )

magick, pagan

Comments 6

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Re: cool :) ulbh May 31 2005, 20:32:58 UTC

Magnolia something? Linda (last name lost or forgotten or never given)?

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Re: cool :) ulbh May 31 2005, 20:55:51 UTC

Well, well. I went to a workshop Linda gave on mediumship. Wasn't what I was expecting, and she didn't quite get down to the nitty-gritty before time ran out, but she did do an impressive psychometry demonstration, using my serpent necklace.

I kept my mouth shut until she was done, so I wouldn't go away thinking she had just done a cold reading. If it was any other kind of fake (a "hot" reading) then it was even more impressive in a way :-)

I didn't see anything else of the Reclaiming people all weekend, that I know of. Didn't meet anyone named Michael, either. I need to get out more!

marginaleye May 31 2005, 20:51:14 UTC

Spirit vision is getting much better. It so happened that between other events, I was reading Francis King's history, Modern Ritual Magic, and he characterizes some of the Golden Dawn offshoots as having basically become astral-vision junkies. I can see how that could happen! Anyway, you won't hear me whining about "I suck at visualization" any more.

So do you have any suggestions? Unfortunately, I "suck at visualization" so badly that I'm forever tempted to say "to heck with Yesod, the Astral, and the rest of the roadside attractions, I'm just going to sit here and blindly grind away at my mantra, come hell, high water, or dhyana." Any advice (apart from entheogenic "pump-priming") would be gratefully appreciated.

ulbh May 31 2005, 21:06:50 UTC

"Any advice (apart from entheogenic 'pump-priming') would be gratefully appreciated."

LOL -- if entheogens helped, I'd have been a visualizing wizard 30 years ago. In fact, they might tend to burn the facility out, if anything.

The hint that Lili gave me was not to expect the "movie screen behind the eyelids" type thing, at least not right away, but to look for the same kinds of perceptions that go along with memories, which can be pretty vague visually in some people, but still give you some kind of abstract "picture." She has trouble teaching visualization because it comes so naturally to her, but this was pretty telling.

The other things that helped were, you guessed it, persistent practice, and the hip-gnosis work I mentioned earlier. Now, when I get to a certain level of relaxation, I'm quite likely to get visuals whether I'm trying to or not.

"Relax" is itself another good clue, to just about everything. I figure anything that Israel Regardie and Draja Mickaharic agree on is probably worth looking at.

arian_diana June 1 2005, 02:51:47 UTC

I really think I would have enjoyed attending something like this and learning more. Sounds like a very interesting time!

ulbh June 1 2005, 18:19:09 UTC

It definitely was. Great place, wonderful people. Very few of the silly mishaps that often happen at festivals. Lili apparently got a tick bite (we're not 100% sure, since she saw the tick only after it fed, but has a small bruise just below her knee that has no other known explanation). Even the "storm" that was supposed to keep us buttoned down Sunday night turned out to be a gentle, steady, sleep-enhancing rain. A little work I did Sunday evening with a favorite storm God may have helped that.