Ogham Reading Sanity Check
Apr. 20th, 2022 12:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jprussellUPDATE 4/22/22: See bottom of entry for some further thoughts
Well, I suppose this is my first actual post to my own journal here. I mostly maintain it to participate in other communities and comment on others' posts, but I'm noodling over something and thought I might see if anyone has thoughts. I very well might post this to the next Magic Monday, but I thought I'd solicit thoughts ahead of time.
My wife and I are expecting our second daughter in October (hooray!), and because of that, I'm going to need to put any progression in ceremonial magic on hold. I was considering the Dolmen Arch as an alternative to the Druid Magic Handbook I've been working my way through, as it sounded like a good way to build on the lore and symbolism I've already learned and maintain a rigorous practice without (much) ceremonial magic.
So, I did an Ogham spread for the question "Should I take up the Dolmen Arch course while I put the DMH on pause?" and got the following:
Whatever else this is, it seems like a pretty clear "no". I read it as "I've got what I need, but I'm missing it and need to pay more attention and work out a better way forward with what I've got to hand, very possibly because I'm misunderstanding what my true goal is/ought to be."
As such, I'm thinking I might be better off meditating my way through all of the Ogham correspondences, pathworking the wheel of the year, and otherwise exploring the non-ceremonial parts of the DMH, while keeping up with the Earth and Sun path stuff in the Druidry Handbook.
Obviously, I'll have to work this one out for myself with thinking, meditation, and divination, but if anything from the above jumps out at you as an especially good or bad idea, or if I've gotten the reading entirely wrong, I'd appreciate hearing so.
Any and all thoughts decidedly welcome!
Update 4/22/22
Thanks to sdi and aelric for your comments, and if anyone has further thoughts, those would still be helpful. I ended up casting more readings throughout the week, each building on the previous results:
Question 1 (4/20/22): "Should I set aside the DMH and its work while my kids are too young for advanced magic?"
- Setting: Ur
- Work: Huath (Reversed)
- Outcome: Saille
My Take: I've got a strong spiritual base, and moving forward I'll need flexibility, but it would be rash to set aside the DMH entirely.
Question 2 (4/21/22): "Should I keep up with the safe work from the DMH while my kids are too young for advanced magic?"
- Setting: Nuin
- Work: Ur
- Outcome: Coll (Reversed)
My Take: There is a wider world of context and connection around me I need to be paying attention to, and doing the work of the DMH will provide plenty of spiritual richness (note the repetition of Ur, here), but if this is all that I do, I'll run into creative blockages, perhaps holding myself back through fear of failure.
Question 3 (4/22/22): "Should I combine the Dolmen Arch with my DMH study while my kids are too young to safely do ceremonial magic?"
- Setting: Koad
- Work: Duir
- Outcome: Tinne
My Take: There is great possibility and capacity for freedom around me, and I have the strength needed to follow this path. Doing so might result in some challenges/conflicts, but if I am decisive and bold, those can go my way.
Commentary on the process: This might look like nitpicking or asking the same question in slightly different ways, but for me, at least, I've found the Ogham to be pretty well suited to these kinds of narrowing-down/circling around the main point kind of questions. It does seem to be important to take each answer seriously, and for any subsequent questions to build on previous ones, but or lack of a better way to put it, the Ogham seems to "like" exploring the same general idea from different angles, especially if it's a question of spiritual relevance.
In this case, I began with an overloaded question: "Should I take up the Dolmen Arch course while I put the DMH on pause?" This 1) assumed I should put the DMH on pause and replace it with something else, and 2) assumed that replacement ought to be the Dolmen Arch. Realizing it was overloaded (with some help from commenters!) led me to test those assumptions. First, "should I put the DMH on pause?" and then when I got a seeming "no" to that question, just to be extra clear "so, I should keep up with the DMH, then?" which got me a "yes, but. . ." And then, based on Aelric's comment, I got back to specifics and asked "Okay, so is the thing I should combine with it the DA?" and got what looks like almost as close to an unqualified "yes" as I know to look for from a 3-card spread in Ogham.
Anyhow, again, if anyone sees any glaring errors in the above, I'd love to hear about them, and even if not, I hope that explaining my process gives some helpful insight to someone.
Well, I suppose this is my first actual post to my own journal here. I mostly maintain it to participate in other communities and comment on others' posts, but I'm noodling over something and thought I might see if anyone has thoughts. I very well might post this to the next Magic Monday, but I thought I'd solicit thoughts ahead of time.
My wife and I are expecting our second daughter in October (hooray!), and because of that, I'm going to need to put any progression in ceremonial magic on hold. I was considering the Dolmen Arch as an alternative to the Druid Magic Handbook I've been working my way through, as it sounded like a good way to build on the lore and symbolism I've already learned and maintain a rigorous practice without (much) ceremonial magic.
So, I did an Ogham spread for the question "Should I take up the Dolmen Arch course while I put the DMH on pause?" and got the following:
- Situation: Quert
- Work: Ailm (Reversed)
- Outcome: Tinne (Reversed)
Whatever else this is, it seems like a pretty clear "no". I read it as "I've got what I need, but I'm missing it and need to pay more attention and work out a better way forward with what I've got to hand, very possibly because I'm misunderstanding what my true goal is/ought to be."
As such, I'm thinking I might be better off meditating my way through all of the Ogham correspondences, pathworking the wheel of the year, and otherwise exploring the non-ceremonial parts of the DMH, while keeping up with the Earth and Sun path stuff in the Druidry Handbook.
Obviously, I'll have to work this one out for myself with thinking, meditation, and divination, but if anything from the above jumps out at you as an especially good or bad idea, or if I've gotten the reading entirely wrong, I'd appreciate hearing so.
Any and all thoughts decidedly welcome!
Update 4/22/22
Thanks to sdi and aelric for your comments, and if anyone has further thoughts, those would still be helpful. I ended up casting more readings throughout the week, each building on the previous results:
Question 1 (4/20/22): "Should I set aside the DMH and its work while my kids are too young for advanced magic?"
- Setting: Ur
- Work: Huath (Reversed)
- Outcome: Saille
My Take: I've got a strong spiritual base, and moving forward I'll need flexibility, but it would be rash to set aside the DMH entirely.
Question 2 (4/21/22): "Should I keep up with the safe work from the DMH while my kids are too young for advanced magic?"
- Setting: Nuin
- Work: Ur
- Outcome: Coll (Reversed)
My Take: There is a wider world of context and connection around me I need to be paying attention to, and doing the work of the DMH will provide plenty of spiritual richness (note the repetition of Ur, here), but if this is all that I do, I'll run into creative blockages, perhaps holding myself back through fear of failure.
Question 3 (4/22/22): "Should I combine the Dolmen Arch with my DMH study while my kids are too young to safely do ceremonial magic?"
- Setting: Koad
- Work: Duir
- Outcome: Tinne
My Take: There is great possibility and capacity for freedom around me, and I have the strength needed to follow this path. Doing so might result in some challenges/conflicts, but if I am decisive and bold, those can go my way.
Commentary on the process: This might look like nitpicking or asking the same question in slightly different ways, but for me, at least, I've found the Ogham to be pretty well suited to these kinds of narrowing-down/circling around the main point kind of questions. It does seem to be important to take each answer seriously, and for any subsequent questions to build on previous ones, but or lack of a better way to put it, the Ogham seems to "like" exploring the same general idea from different angles, especially if it's a question of spiritual relevance.
In this case, I began with an overloaded question: "Should I take up the Dolmen Arch course while I put the DMH on pause?" This 1) assumed I should put the DMH on pause and replace it with something else, and 2) assumed that replacement ought to be the Dolmen Arch. Realizing it was overloaded (with some help from commenters!) led me to test those assumptions. First, "should I put the DMH on pause?" and then when I got a seeming "no" to that question, just to be extra clear "so, I should keep up with the DMH, then?" which got me a "yes, but. . ." And then, based on Aelric's comment, I got back to specifics and asked "Okay, so is the thing I should combine with it the DA?" and got what looks like almost as close to an unqualified "yes" as I know to look for from a 3-card spread in Ogham.
Anyhow, again, if anyone sees any glaring errors in the above, I'd love to hear about them, and even if not, I hope that explaining my process gives some helpful insight to someone.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-06 12:24 am (UTC)2a. Secondly, yes, Dolmen Arch is definitely blowing me away. Everything in it is consistent with the DMH and Way of the Golden Section, but wow, it does not stay in the shallow end for long at all. If you want to follow it "as is", you'd have to adopt an SOP practice rather than a CGD practice, but I imagine you could adapt it pretty readily if you subsituted the LBRP wherever it says "SOP" and "Middle Pillar Exercise" wherever it says "Grail Working", but there might be some more advanced stuff that is more dependent on the DMH-style foundations than I know about so far. If nothing else, you could meditate on the Mabinogion and the Druid Philosophy papers in each grade.
2b. I have thought about this some! One option I considered was using this time to begin the training for the Golden Section Fellowship in WotGS, including picking up the Sacred Geometry Oracle. I also thought about learning the Tarot, and/or some astrology fundamentals. When I actually plotted out what I could do in the DMH + DA, though, I realized I've got rather a lot to get going on! I can scry (and then meditate on the scrying for a few days) all 25 of the Ogham Fews, which ought to keep me busy for at least ~4-6 months, and then I have the pathworkings of the Wheel of Life (another ~4-6 months, as each path corresponds to one of the Fews). If I spend ~4 days a week on scrying/meditating on the scrying, and the other 3 meditating on Dolmen Arch themes, that's at least a year all by itself.
Currently, I have a non-fiction, non-occult book that is my "main" reading (right now, Spengler's The Decline of the West, Volume 2), an occult book or group of books that I'm studying in more depth (mostly DA volume 1, but jumping back to DH, DMH, and WotGS sometimes), an occult book that I read in bits and snatches when I have spare time (just started Fortune's Aspects of Occultism), and a fiction book I read before bed (just finished That Hideous Strength last night). Obviously this is a lot, and that's an ideal - very many days I end up skipping reading one or more of those. All of which is to say that I could certainly tweak my reading/study habits to go into a lot more depth on something targeted if I decided to (I'm certainly welcome to suggestions!)
3. Lastly, Thanks very much! I suppose I might ask for a single card response on something like "What do I most need to understand about following this course of study and practice?"
Thanks very much for your response,
Jeff