Disconnected

It's been 8 months since I fled my mother's nest. Considering my age, that may sound funny and surprising for most Western people but we Filipinos take family ties very seriously, true to our Asian and Hispanic roots. I've always had issues with work commute so I rented a tiny studio flat very close to the workplace. I was worried that living alone would drive me nuts in a jiffy but it did the exact opposite instead. I've significantly gotten better from my anxiety, and dare I say, I find myself to be more at peace these days than the last couple of months before I moved out. There is no such thing as too may pillows. I think it's got something to do with the other changes that went with it. My new workplace is in Quezon City, very...

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A Year and A Day

So, it's been a year since I discovered I've got a fucked-up liver. So far, my health has improved, some strength has been regained, but the damage has been done. Basically, I'm still dying very slowly. Actually we all are, I just got a head start. But I wouldn't have survived this difficult year if it weren't for good doctors, good friends, strength of spirit, sheer luck, and some magic. I'm still grateful. I'm actually fighting my battles on two fronts: one in the gut and one in the mind, which is a far more difficult enemy. I DO appreciate the words of encouragement, but when you have this kind of shit, one would prefer honesty over reassurance. Empathy over sympathy. I believe and I know that you have nothing but good intentions when...

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Finding DIRI.

Hello blog. It's been a while. It's been two and half years to be exact and I've got so much to write about but for now, I just want to pick up where I left. In case you haven't caught up, the last few entries of this blog have been about my exploration of the Enochian magical system. After a series of missteps and experimentation, I eventually got to that part where I finally get to open the gates of the Watchtowers, visit fantastic and creepy worlds, have tea-time with weird inter-dimensional beings and nudge them for life-changing information. You know about those rumours going around in occult circles about Enochian magic being so powerful that it could bring about apocalyptic change? I don't know if there's substantial evidence for...

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Remembering Pol

Me on a willow tree. Photo taken by Pol. Yesterday I went to a gathering of the local pagan community to commemorate the life of our dear friend Pol, and last night, I had a dream of him. It was actually more of a memory. It was late December 2009 and we were in the gardens of the University of the Philippines. He was picking branches and I was picking leaves from a tree which he believes to be a specie of willow. He said he was going to scrape the bark off the branch, embellish it, and turn it into a wand. Pol was pretty good in those things. He has a set of runes which he carved by himself and charged with his own blood. He makes corn dollies and weaves perfect Brighid's crosses from palm leaves. He asked me why I was only picking the...

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On New Year's Resolutions

So, it's December again. What the heck? I was almost tempted to write that old cliché about time flying so fast. But of course, we all know that unless you travel to another part of space with a significant amount of gravitational time dilation (thank you, Interstellar), time remains the same. It is this adult life that has gotten so fast - we want to do a lot, own a lot, achieve a lot, that even humanity's longer lifespan isn't enough for us now. What am I babbling about? I don't know. Maybe I'll just talk about resolutions. Many people have given up on making new year's resolutions complaining that they don't work anyway. The problem is that people look at it like a Christmas wish list. The key is in the word itself: resolve. People write...

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Enochian Journal 7: The Last Five Days of Initiation

"...I am become a seer in the light of your countenance. I see your shining angels and magnify your name among them. Adonai Sabaothאדני צבאות, I, C.F.F., call upon the power of your Name. In the power of your mighty Name this work of invocation is well and truly fulfilled. Amen. Amen. Amen." I called upon Enochian Gods, seniors, kerubs, and now it's finally time to meet the entities at the lowest level of the angelic hierarchy - the ones I will probably work with most often. The servient angels may be the clerks and desk jockeys of the Enochian world but that doesn't make them any less wondrous. Maybe it's my "new-improved" psychic powers, but they actually felt more visceral to me than the entities I've met before. Most of the time, I...

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Enochian Journal 6: The Choir of the Cherubim

It's now down to the Cherubim after praying to the Gods and the Seniors of the Watchtowers. The books call these entities "kerubs" or "dispositors", but I like to use "cherub" for now because it looks more romantic. Of course, the creatures that have shown themselves in the visions are far from the classical cherubic images of babies with angel wings (those are putti, not cherubs, by the way). My skrying skills are getting better after weeks of practice. I have learned not to focus only on the visual details of the entities and the landscape; I have also been trying to be aware of the sounds, the smell, the feel on my skin (warmth, coldness, humidity, dryness, etc.), as well as what I am feeling internally. I still have to work on my memory...

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Enochian Journal 5: The 24 Seniors

Continuing the 19-day working and going a bit further down the hierarchy. After the God names, its now down to the seniors, which come to my mind as the twenty-four elder beings surrounding the heavenly throne in the book of Revelation, Donald Tyson grouped the seniors by four, so it is a six-day working for all of them. I prefer to use the Golden Dawn planetary correspondences for the Seniors and their assignment in the Great Cross although Tyson clearly has no love for Golden Dawn stuff. The creatures that I encountered were more willing to converse, although I wasn't able to make sense out of most of what they were saying. Perhaps it's my abilities, or perhaps I haven't yet attained a level of wisdom to understand them. There were creatures...

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Paper Mage

The older I grow as a magician, the less I'm interested in owning stuff. I have been giving away a number of my books and magical items keeping only those things that I actually put into use. I now own less than I have five years ago, and sometimes I feel I still have too much. I give. I don't sell. I don't think I would gain much profit or satisfaction from selling my old stuff anyway. I think giving (or doing an act of kindness for that matter) without expectation of return is an exercise that every human being should do. Own, own, own. Grab, grab, grab. This materialistic, consumerist, cosmopolitan way of life gets very tiring easily. Trees get to be pruned, snakes shed their skin, people must undergo some kind of death in order...

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Banaue - Stairways to Haven

"Good morning", an Ifugao elder said to me while I was taking pictures around the village. She was carrying a baby, lulling her to sleep. I could see that the woman's teeth was already reddened from years of chewing betel leaves, a favorite pastime in these areas. I wasn't able to greet back. I was waiting for something that comes after the "good morning". Maybe she'd sell some merchanise, or offer tourist services. But no. It was a genuine, cordial, neighborly greeting - so rare these days that I was taken aback. I felt so ashamed of myself. Look at what the world has done to me: I have become suspicious of friendly greetings. Finally, I managed to smile and belatedly respond: "Good morning din po". I got up just before sunrise...

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