Fractal Interpolation 012 - Solstice Darkness
Episode 12
Solstice Darkness
2014–12–20
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Solstice Darkness
Everyone seems to be going off comm for the year, regardless of what they do. Maybe it is a property of time, of the season. Things slow down, withdraw, become more private. As we travel toward the darkest night of the year we contemplate internally more, and hibernate in whatever way we can. I wonder how much of this is cultural, how much learned behavior from the agrarian inheritance, and how much is in our DNA, directly tied to cold and darkness.
I was listening to m1k3y’s conversation with Gordon White yesterday, and he tossed out this idea in passing that really resonated with me: Rewilding, the re-introducing of extinct species, the recreation of actual wild zones outside the control of humanity, as a really deeply witchy thing, far moreso than a celebration of a harvest festival that the modern world has disconnected us from nearly completely.
The Supply Chain (All Hail The Great And Terrible Supply Chain) has detached us from so much of the traditional infrastructure of occult thought. Specifically of course the temporal aspect of the wheel of the year corresponding in an immediate way with notions of survival, but also with certain spatial notions. I remember fondly the heady days of the 90s when a loose conglomeration of occultists bound together mostly by a mailing list conducted a synchronized ritual which launched a servitor satellite (we still <3 you Zerbat!) and if that isn’t a weirding of the notion of sacred space I don’t know what would be.
So it’s not all a bad thing, and I’m not going on some Back To The Land trip just yet. I’m more thinking about how “traditional” models are very useful to learn from, but also that it’s important to be able to find something underneath that the point to, so you aren’t just parroting when the models become less applicable.
Many cultures have spent thousands of years of trial and error to bring us this information, and we should take it where we can. But the harvest days and the Beltane fires and the sacrifices… these are just language we use to engage with the deeper reality. Rune and ritual, blood and fire, these are tools, things that we can grasp, second level interfaces to a deeper reality. The Chaos Magick paradigm (of which, of course, I am a fan) holds that all models are potentially either Metaphors or Real Truths or (most likely, in most cases) both simultaneously, and it is advantageous to be able to fluidly move between these, so as not to be eaten by Dogmas. The practical extrapolation of this, I think, is the conclusion that every set of tools is a more or less effective means of approaching something deeper. I’ve been thinking along these lines for some time, about the magic that occurs before the metaphor. Not trying to grasp it in any real sense, because that of course requires additional metaphors… this is the the problem of Speaking Without Language, which has taunted philosophers for centuries in one form or another, and is an issue which I am completely comfortable observing from an amused distance. No, I’m just interested in mapping a sort of liminal space occupied by all things which are clearly a reference to a deeper reality but which don’t correspond to a specific (or, more accurately, understood by the observer) paradigm.
I have this tag, in various collections both local and clouded, “universal anachronism.” It’s my shorthand for this phenomenon. It’s exemplified quite nicely by this:
There is clearly some Serious Magickal Intent going on here. And I have no doubt that someone, either this guy, or whoever took the photo, or maybe someone who just happens to understand whatever local process is going on here more than I, knows what that Intent is. But for me, without the context… it’s just evocative, without concrete meaning. I don’t know what this guy is trying to accomplish, what strange gods he intends to call up from what dank metallic otherworld. But I love him, and I appreciate his dedication. Because to me, without the proper context, this is a pure act, untainted by dogma or even sanity.
(EDIT: In trying to track down this image again, I wound up accidentally getting some context for it. It turns out to be potentially interesting enough that it may deserve its own newsletter later. I won’t spoil.)
This is the source of power, before it gets filtered through the models and metaphors of whatever era you’re operating in. And thus I think it’s valuable to think about when we get to this so-called 21st Century, where it seems market forces are trying to suppress all ideas that can’t be exchanged for money. Finding the liminal, the numinous, the psychological Exclusion Zones (yes m1k3y I’m riffing on you again), the places where reality shows cracks. Because no matter what you’ve been sold by consensus reality, there are always cracks.
It doesn’t matter if you share my notion of magic, here, it doesn’t matter if you stopped paying attention as soon as I spelled it with the K of Pretension. Because what I’m talking about, here, isn’t just witches and alchemists and OTO wankers and that mad fellow in the green-greyscale up there. I’m also talking about the synchronicity of meeting someone in the street who you haven’t seen in years. I’m talking about the late night party that turns into a conversation you never expected to have. I’m talking about the smell of the lighting as you watch thunderheads gather, even above your grey concrete bauhaus monuments to the industrial revolution. I’m talking about the way she smiles, I’m talking about the way he laughs, I’m talking about the flicker as the neon dies and the great black light that shines in the eyes of animals. Call it magick, call it the unconscious, call it swamp gas, it all points to the places we haven’t mapped, can’t map with the tools Platonism has left us. Whatever terms you use to describe or deny it, it’s there, every day, all the time, as either a presence or an absence. The map can never be complete. The Black Iron Prison always has cracks.
So, this is my message of Holiday Cheer to you. Whether you’re a Christian thinking about the nativity of Tammuz, or a Pagan looking to the Longest Night and hoping to not Eat The Bean, or just a harried Consumerist trying desperately to check people off your To Gift list, I wish you the best in being able to see the intersections between all these things, and the cracks in the world through which you may escape, should you wish to.
See you again on the other side of the Darkest Night.