Asking Hermes with knucklebones
The ancient roadside oracles used knucklebones, astragaloi, and I finally made a set. Four lamb knuckles from the butcher (he didn't ask, I didn't explain), simmered clean, dried on the balcony for a week.
Each bone has four sides that land differently. Throw all four and you get a combination, and the old inscribed tables match each combination to a short oracular saying. I keep a modern translation in my notebook.
My question: should I go to my cousin's wedding in Athens next year, given the cost? The bones gave a line about a traveler who will not regret the road. In fairness, I'd already looked at flights before asking. Hermes, patron of travelers and of excellent excuses, approved.
Doing the rounds at the well
Drove out to Brigid's well at Kildare on Sunday in a soft grey drizzle, the best weather for it. Did the rounds the old way, walking sunwise and stopping at each of the stones, with a line of poetry at each one instead of the usual prayers, since that's how she and I talk.
An older woman was praying her rosary rounds right behind me. We ended up sharing a flask of tea by the stream and agreeing that Brigid has room for the both of us. Her mother first brought her there in 1961.
One small plea if you visit any holy well or rag tree: tie only strips of cotton or wool that will rot away, never ribbon or plastic. The wish is meant to fade as the cloth does.
The robe stays in the closet
Year one of ceremonial magic, I spent $240 on a black robe with gold trim, a hand-painted lamen and a wand I'm still embarrassed about. Five years later the robe has been worn exactly four times. The daily work happens in sweatpants at 6:10am, between the alarm and the kettle.
I don't regret the robe. It was a promise to myself that I was taking this seriously. But the promise that actually held was smaller and duller: banish every morning, write it down every night, even when nothing happens. Especially when nothing happens.
If you're new and tempted by the beautiful gear, buy a cheap notebook first. If you're still filling it in a year, you've earned the robe.
Sit still. Write down every twitch.
Working through the asana exercise in Liber E this month. The instruction is simple to the point of insult: choose a posture, hold it, and record in your diary every time you move.
Week one: 3 minutes 40 seconds before my left eyebrow made an independent decision. Week three: 11 minutes, interrupted by the neighbour's leaf blower and my own impatience, in that order.
What nobody tells you is how revealing the diary becomes. Every twitch has a thought attached to it, and most of mine, it turns out, are about whether I'm doing it right. Discipline, not costume. The robe stays in the closet for this one.
The boatman who knew my name
A story my grandchildren ask for every Diwali, so I'll tell it here too.
I was nine, in Varanasi, and I'd wandered away from my family at the ghats during the evening aarti. Thousands of lamps, bells, conch shells, and one small lost boy crying near the steps.
An old boatman with a white beard and eyes like river stones crouched down and said, 'Arjun, your mother is at Dashashwamedh, near the third umbrella.' Then he went back to his boat. I had never seen him before. I hadn't told him my name.
She was exactly there, at the third umbrella, frantic. When we went back to thank him, the other boatmen said nobody like that worked that stretch of the river.
Sixty-two years I've wondered. Maybe a kind man who overheard my mother shouting. Maybe Ganga Ma looking after her own. Either way, I bow to the river every time I think of it.
Lapis for Djehuty, carnelian for Bast (with footnotes)
Updated the shrine stones this week: a small lapis lazuli on Djehuty's side, a carnelian on Bast's.
Footnote 1: lapis didn't come from Egypt at all. It was traded all the way from the mountains of Badakhshan, in what's now Afghanistan, which tells you how much it was prized. Some texts describe the gods' hair as made of lapis.
Footnote 2: carnelian turns up everywhere in Egyptian jewellery and amulets. Its warm red-orange felt right for Bast, who is fierce and cozy in equal measure, rather like the cat currently asleep on my keyboard.
Footnote 3: I paid $14 for both. The pharaohs would weep.
Blessing the new shop door
The old shop door finally gave up after thirty years of desert wind, so the new one got a proper welcome before we opened this morning. I swept the threshold outward, wiped the frame down with salt water, and tucked a small piece of black tourmaline into the hollow above the latch where only I know it is.
Then I stood in the doorway and said out loud what I want this door to do: let in the curious, the grieving, the kids who just want to touch the shiny rocks, and anyone who needs ten quiet minutes. Keep out the rest.
I won't tell you the stone "protects" anything. I'll tell you I feel different walking through that door now. That's enough for me.