2.0 – A is for Automatic Writing

I have had vivid contact with Deity as long as I can remember. I didn’t have many playmates as a child, and so I quickly adopted an invisible friend and did things like host communion for Jesus and the apostles with white bread and red kool-aid.

I have had the ability to slip into an altered state of consciousness for long enough that I don’t exactly remember the first time that it happened. Growing up, I would often hear something like, “Oh, Faye’s just off in her own little world, again.” I would become so immersed in whatever book I was reading that background conversation would fade and I would enter the world of the book. As a child, angels and faeries were as real to me as flesh-and-blood people. When I grew up and started looking at it for what it was, I realized I had been walking in between worlds for years, and felt very blessed to be so closely protected and guarded by Spirit Guides and Animal totems through the times that I had been in danger of losing touch with myself.

As a result of being able to access Other Realms so easily, I’m afraid I don’t have much practical advice for beginners who are totally new to this. My guess is, though, that more people do this than who realize they can. When I want to contact Deity, the easiest way for me to do it is by sitting and meditating: I close my eyes and visualize being in the realm of whatever Deity I am contacting. I do my best to imagine tastes, smells, and textures as well as sights and sounds. It is important for me to tie in all my senses to the experience, to feel materially connected to that place. Ambience plays an important part in my ability to “depart” from this realm into another. I don’t really leave my body, in the sense of astral projection – what I do is closer to creating a ‘tesseract’ as it’s called in Wrinkle in Time (one of my favorite books as a child), where I draw the alternate dimension where the Deity dwells to me.

In the case of automatic writing, I have attempted long hand exercises with no success. I either begin to think, or receive thoughts, and those make their way to the page through me knowing exactly what I am writing, or my mind stays blank and my pen strokes remain indiscernible loops and scribbles for pages and pages. I work around this state of being by entering into a meditative state and contacting the Deity directly, so I receive my information in a way that is closer to Aspecting, which I covered in my first PBP article. Even when I am transcribing my experience with Deity, it is almost reflexive for me to go back and correct any little typos I make. It can be maddening at times, and hard not to let it pull my entire consciousness back into my body. Slowly I have learned to let my fingers and eyes do what they do to get the words on the screen, and let my soul remained engaged in contact with Deity. If I feel pulled back to my physical body, I don’t fight it (fighting with Self is something I recommend avoiding altogether) – instead, I listen to whatever needs my body or personality has in the moment, and then either address them or release them depending on their urgency. To get back into the contact with Deity, I open myself to be completely receptive to their presence. In the case of Bel, I was bathed in warm, golden sunlight. With Brighid,  I was drawn to listening to birdsong in the distance, and to the song of the wind as it played over the gentle slope where I stood on with her. With Sekhmet, it took me longer to establish contact, but once I was there, the experience happened so fast that I was never really drawn out of it. I suspect that contacting different Deities would yield different results for anyone, depending on the depth and length of their relationship with that Being.

Can the process I just described count as automatic writing? Or is a part of the inherent definition involve the writer being unaware of what they are writing at the time? I would appreciate feedback, here.

I have learned from personal accounts, myths, and my own experiences (luckily more from the former two than latter one – the Gods and Goddesses have been kind to me in my lessons, maybe because I’m willing to listen to others’ cautionary tales?) that it is a dire mistake to assume that a deity does not have their own personal agenda in working with you. For a good (if exaggerated) example, read American Gods by Neil Gaiman, and see for yourself. Deities have their own free will that cannot be dictated by human consciousness (at least, not without serious ramifications, just as with controlling another human/animal consciousness against their will).

Always ask your Innermost Self (through a divination tool, if need be) whether you really want to work with the deity you have in mind. Then ask yourself whether it is for your mutual highest and best to work with the deity you have in mind at that time. You could have an affinity for a deity but not be compatible with them at the moment that you would like to work with them. Spend time in a sensory experience with the deity’s energy, either by looking up images of that deity, reading their stories, or working with the elemental energy they are connected to, along with the sound of their name.

I hope this information helps in your experiences, no matter what those may be. Blessed be.

Automatic Writing as Aspecting: 1.1 – a session with Bel

Tonight, I set sacred space with clear intent. I lit a yellow 7-day candle that has been charging on an altar since last spring, for just this purpose, on an altar dedicated to youthfulness and the Sun. It was time to contact Bel.

From time to time, I find it helpful to contact Deity through the medium of type. The electronic age allows me to use the current in the device as a receiver of the message. The last time I contacted Bel was to paint His portrait in the summer/autumn of 2009. Moving back to Utah from Berkeley, California unleashed a series of paintings of portraits from my psyche that I had begun to paint in the Bay, but had been unable to finish. Looking back, I think I had reasons in relocating that had as much to do with finishing that series, as they did getting out of a bad neighborhood situation. (There’s a tragedy behind that: it turns out that the importance of my work as an artist supersedes enjoying geographical closeness to many of my friends who just happen to live in the Bay area. But I digress.) Bel helped me to shine a light on the pain of sacrifice, and his portrait became a beautiful gift to some dear friends of mine.

So, in any case, with the moon in Leo, the sign of the Sun, I called to Bel, and He answered.

What follows is a raw transcript, edited only for punctuation and legibility.

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I would like this time to speak with Bel –

God of Warmth, the Sun, Summer, Growth, and Ultimately Sacrifice:

You who give yourself every year as grain for our bodies and bellies, as seed to sprout in our soils…

By giving of yourself you show us how to give, and how to accept your gifts.

I invite you, now, into my hands, into my fingers, to put down your message here.

Welcome. Do you have questions for me?

Thank you for your presence, Bel. What message do you carry for growth, in 2012?

Never underestimate the power of consistency. In doing what you wish to accomplish, and in facing stubborn adversity. Your efforts much work with the cycles of nature, and like me, listen to when the wind blows in a certain direction, and move with it when it is time. I give you grace to forgive yourself for bein gout of syn, I can teach you anwyyway, no matter where you are in your ability. Work with me for understanding and heeding time, when to stay and grow, and when to scatter your seed across the winds. The wind is my mother, and the earth is my lover. I listen to my mother but always return to my lover. So you must heed the wind, but when it is time to be planted, put down your roots, understasnding that you are exactly where you need to be at this time. Here. Now. Love. Growth. Giving. Remember anything you sacrifice, you give to yourself.

Thank you, Bel, for this wisdom. I bow in gratitude. You honor me by being here.

Of course I am here, I am with the light of the Sun, and in the Sun, and of the Sun. Honor me by planting seeds, and making love on the sunwarmed earth. Honor me by sharing your food with others, any time you can. These are my rites.

Why do I feel impatience from you, sometimes, when the year is waxing toward the Solstice?

It is my natural way to push outward, onward, through, underneath, thrusting toward the next thing. All the energies of growth accelerate during that time, and sometimes my anger manifests in reflection of the mourning the People have for losing the Old Ways. Racism, bigotry, hatred, anger me, but they are the sad products of people who were mistreated as children themselves, by their parents, by other people, by society. To honor the One we must honor the All. I am part of the One, I am Sunlight, Growth, Fission, Fire, Sex. Reproduction. Generation. Regeneration. I can mend the broken bones, I am the Tree of Life in Full Bloom. I am the fire that dwells in your blood, makes your blood boil.

At the end, I am consumed in fire, because ultimately it is by burning that the world is nourished again. I give of my body in the sacrifice of annihilation so that I may feed the Earth. When My Lover Devrous me, I enter her to again be reborn. I Continue on even through Death.

Do you have any advice?

If you wish your Death to honor ME, be burned after your own death. Feed the Earth. Continue on through Death.

Thank you, Bel, Hail Bel, Farewell, Bel. XOXOX