Experiences, Psyche, Shamanism
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In the Woods with Baphomet

[The magic]
 
I’m passing through magical woods, soon down to Mouthmill when a ray of light calls me. I know this language very well- the woods/ Nature are leading me places. That’s how it shows me where to find mushrooms, a leaf falling; electric plankton showing me where to exit the water without stepping on sea-stars; glow-bugs guiding my way in the dark to the tree under which I am sleeping… It has always been that way though I fear that if I’ll try showing to it someone it would not work.
I follow the light, wondering what it is the woods wish of me (oh, what vanity…).
This morning I knew the second the weather shifted by the sounds of the animals, which made me quite excited and I would gladly detour for the sake of some extra communion.
 
The light leads me to a Rowan tree – Sorbus aucuparia – the beautiful Wicken tree with its history of spirit-banishing and its orange-red berries. Rowan informs me that I am to spend the night in the woods and sends me over to a beautiful Oak (in its prime, I dare say) growing together with an Ivy, a Hazel and another Rowan. Under this quartet, by some mysteriously entwined twigs, I am to… the Oak informs me that there a ritual is to be performed.
(Yes, of course the Oak speaks to me! Assuming sHe might not is like saying I am living in a fantasy…)
I follow instructions assuming the Oak needs me or mayhaps the woods herself.
The setting is perfect. I perform some offerings, DNA merging, the Oak insists upon a candle, a ring, a mirror of obsidian – et voilá! – Oaki wants to be read aloud a chapter from The Book of Baphomet – an excellent read indeed; where magick, science and enthogenes (mostly 5-meo-DMT) dance hand in hand to give form to the deity of all-life-energy, a deity we all need to know better in this era of deep ecology. Perhaps the Oak hadn’t been read to lately.
Lights in the Ivy looks like a squirrel-monkey and I have to pull myself back to reality, the continent I’m in and my mission – reading aloud to an oak.
 
My body senses the weight of the coming ritual.
In the Book of Baphomet the magickal detectives are finding a face to their deity. As I read aloud I start shaking and my body is sinking with indescribable density and weight. Nothing is new, just a thread with which to collect all the beads of my life, a storyline for old experiences: a night with Huambisa (5-meo-DMT) ayahuasca in the jungle when David said “this is what it feels like to be a plant, this feeling is the pulse of life. “; a visionquest in the Pyrenees when I turned into a black jaguar; a sunset on a childhood rock… I “know” it all, so why are the new images pressing so heavy upon my chest? Why was I called?
I collapse (not before managing to turn off the candle).
I wake up humming a Baphomet chant I have learnt in Germany. It’s raining. I’m wet.
Apparently in visionquests one is not suppose to be separated from the elements. Is it a visionquest? The Oak seems to think it is. She tells me to stay.  
 
 
[The fall]
 
I am in pain. There are screams in my body, beads that should not have been on the thread – frozen reflections of moments that seem not to be a part of the harmony – the pain of Life. I know how to be grass turning into roots into soil into DNA into water molecules, but this deity wants more. SHe wants clarity. I feel empty. I pass out again.
A sudden change of sounds in the woods wakes me to announce an intruder; a human being had entered the woods 2 miles to the NW. I enjoy the clarity with which I read the signs.  
A squirrel is shouting my presence to another squirrel 6 trees down the hill and after a short conversation the woods get filled with squirrels that come and check me out (one of which stands 20 cm from me), a few squirrels drop nuts or berries at me, many just ignore me and play close by.
I cry. I feel blessed. I feel frustrated. I feel empty. Something is out of balance (to many trees, to little sex??)…
I am so fortunate to feel, and to have always felt, nature so intimately, but I also feel pain – deep pain for the ecology. But there is also a different pain; my own pain for being a rubbish shaman (what do I bring with me back from the magickal realms?!), a rubbish scientist/ eco warrior/ artist/ friend/ lover… I feel to enchanted by the whispers of my own DNA to do the things that really matter.
The woods hug me. The oak asks me to stay a few more days (naturally I have neither food nor water with me). A huge red bird lands by my side, and Baphomet is smiling and putting hir hands upon my heart. I look into hir eyes and I look through hir eyes, all the pieces are there… Letting go of ego, letting go of expectations, of fear and shame… It was not only the woods needing healing, it was me.
 
 
[The Pact]
 
The ocean, the woods, the plants, the animals, this island, this earth, my brothers and sisters… today I am all of these things. I am Life. I am Baphomet; I have a name for all I have ever been.
My sacred blood starts flowing to the soil sealing the agreement like a handshake – I die to be reborn.
Me through you.
You through me.
Our healing is inseparable,
Starting today.
 
 
[The Book]
 
This is (of course) not a book review (try  The Book of Baphomet ) but…
The newly evolved deity Baphomet is the all encompassing energy of Life we all meet in our enthogenic journeys.  SHe is the Great Spirit, the Anima Mundi we all need to feel more connected to. This book might inspire the journier with new ways of working with this energy, while having fun. A great read!!!

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