The value of nothing

No food, no sound, no light, no talking, no sight... Sensory deprivation is an excellent way to go within and prepare for ritual experience, or trance.

A dumb supper is held in silence because it forces the focus to your other senses so that you may commune with the dead. Fasting from food was recommended by many, including the Neo-Platonists, and even the Catholic Church. Part of it is the sacrifice involved, but it's really a matter of having your body attuned to the energy of ritual instead of busily digesting whatever it was you scarfed for breakfast.

Tonight is the first dark moon of autumn. Today I have fasted. Tonight I will shower off the day and go into my temple space where there will be no light and no sound. In the darkness I will journey. Tonight I will commune with the spirits of this land and with whichever deity wishes to communicate tonight.


This seems to be the week for inside info, so here is a song for when you are ready to break the silence. I've translated it into english. There's a specific rhythm for it, but if you just let it come to you with the intention of hearing through the noise it will work for you.

Lady of darkness
Lady of song
Lady to whom I belong
Help me hear
Help me see
Keep your presence close to me
Through the din, the dark, the bright
Guide my hand with your might
Touch my mind
Touch my heart
The center of your sacred art

If done slowly, it's a devotional, a staccato invokes Her aid in extrasensory perception.

Welcome to all of the folks who have recently found my blog. If you've come looking for the list of classes and workshops and open rituals, that will be up next week!

Fasting

Tonight's post is a quickie, so before I get into it, here's a fun Aeneid break. I haven't interjected much of my reading into my posts so why not, it's fitting. I'm sitting here trying to compose my thoughts and wow are the winds roaring. It's been seriously distracting! Here's a quote from book 1 of the Aeneid. I'm way past book one, but it has the best description of Aeolus I've read aside from the ingenious way it was worked into the Percy Jackson series. I really enjoyed that. Yeah, it's a kid's series, but I liked it a lot!

So debating with herself, her heart inflamed, the Goddess (Juno)

came to Aeolia, to the country of storms, the place

of wild gales. Here in his vast cave, King Aeolus,

keeps the writhing winds, and the roaring tempests,

under control, curbs them with chains and imprisonment.

They moan angrily at the doors, with a mountain’s vast murmurs:

Aeolus sits, holding his sceptre, in his high stronghold,

softening their passions, tempering their rage: if not,

they’d surely carry off seas and lands and the highest heavens,

with them, in rapid flight, and sweep them through the air.

But the all-powerful Father, fearing this, hid them

in dark caves, and piled a high mountain mass over them

and gave them a king, who by fixed agreement, would know

how to give the order to tighten or slacken the reins. 

Seems like a few are running loose tonight. I hope they're back under the mountain soon enough. There's a cleansing feel to it. Like the remnants of Winter are being scattered to make way for Spring. It has been one wacky battle of the old year and the new, or as our Wiccan friends might say, between the Holly King and the Oak King.

But onto tonight: Yesterday I mused a bit about eating, tonight I'll talk about fasting. Have you ever done it? Fruit fast? Liquid fast? Water fast? Dry Fast? I've done all of them. I actually enjoy it and not just for it's weight loss benefits. I have found my Work to be that much more amped up? Powerful? Yes! Intense too! It's something even the Catholics have adopted, well, for an hour before their version of cakes and ale.

The same way you need to clear your mind, you need to clear your body. The food you eat affects the effects of your work. Food is energy. The energy you put into your body is the energy you have at your disposal when working. Do you want something slogging through your intestines for days, or do you want fresh, quick digesting fruit that makes it's way through gently, quickly and supports your level of energy? How about eating something that makes you tired because your body is so busy digesting it you can't manage anything else? When fasting, the energy otherwise used for digestion can be harnessed. This works just as well with a fast of eating only fresh fruit as it does when you abstain from everything. At least it does in my experience and the anecdotal evidence I've informally collected.

I fruit fast 24 hours before my work, especially on the Dark and Full Moons, and a few hours after. I try to do that for all of my workings, but some things can't be planned in advance. Since most of my work is done at night, it's not that big a deal to just go to sleep without eating and start fresh in the morning. My circles don't involve food and drink, so I have nothing but my grounding techniques to bring me back down from that energetic high we all love so much. If I'm really flying, I'll have some avocado when I'm done with the night's work. It's technically a fruit and it's nice and heavy. Bananas are ok, but I think the high fat content of the avo is what does the trick for me. When I'm in someone else's circle, I never eat the "cakes" offered. That started out because I'm vegan and most things offered have milk and eggs in them. I've even been to a circle where bacon was involved. >.< Now, even if it was vegan, I'd pass anyway, or take a piece and give it as an offering. I don't like to eat anything at all in circle, but I suppose if strawberries or some other fruit were part of the deal, I'd be down for it.

So what's the difference? When fasting, I feel like I have more energy available, I am more open. There is less in the way between me and deity. I'm able to raise and channel energy more easily. I am able to direct and receive energy more easily. I get results faster than I would have otherwise. My journeying is more intense, my visions are clearer, my constructs are better formed. I see more, I hear more. Intense!

Quieting the body is as helpful as quieting the mind. I know many who meditate or focus before entering sacred space. Abstaining from food (and sex) is a wonderful way to focus your physical energy, you just have to make sure to eat enough fruit and eat often enough. I never dry fast and I rarely fast with water only right out of the gate. It's easier for me to work my way up to a water fast after a few days of fruit.

Have you done it? Have you noted a difference? Are you mindful of what you eat before and after you work?

omnom!