realized that dream? This is a step we often forget. Once we examine what that "reality"
might look like, we might find that the dream is not what we want at all! Rather than something to work toward, it has just been a fantasy we use to escape our daily reality. To realize our dreams, we must first be open to them, then we must be willing and able to do the work to make the dream happen. This is not about winning the lcttery, rather it is about
changing some o/ your attitudes and habits about money in order to find a job that is fulfilling for you and makes enough money for you to live comfortably. This is about taking singing lessons or scheduling time each week to write poetry. What do you want to do? What
is one thing you will do this week to open that as a possibility?
Once you have begun engaging your dreams you are ready to stretch
toward what you truly desire.
powers Above: Risin� and nreumin�
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RisiN G T O MEET You R DESIRE
To engage the Powers Above is to reach beyond ourselves. As I mentionl'd
before, another God of the Feri Tradition is the Peacock. He is Lord of
the Painted Fan, son of the Star Goddess, Quakoralina. He is a face of the
Blue God, whom we have met as Dian y Glas. The Yezidi call him Melek
Taus.2 He is like Krishna, dancing, slayer of demons, inspirer of warriors,
and sexual lover. There are many stories about the Peacock, some lovely
and some difficult. He has lessons for us, though, no matter what the
story. He holds lessons about abundance and fear, lessons about there being enough for everyone: enough beauty, wealth, pride, and talent.
The Peacock calls on us to awaken as he has awakened. Ignoring our
true natures gets us nowhere, it just keeps us asleep. The Peacock challenges us to wake up, to look at ourselves, and to claim our beauty and our darkness. What is fallen in us must be brought to light and to life. All of
our parts must be met for us to be whole. The Peacock is a symbol of this
conflict, a symbol that we must look at ourselves fully in order to become
truly whole and evolve. In Feri Tradition myth, Melek Taus is created when
the Divine Twins, in their forms as the serpent and the bird spirit, are married and joined in union.
This marriage and integration of bird and snake is found in other spiritual traditions that show the peacock eating the snake as a way to conquer darkness. Manly P. Hall writes: "The peacock and the ibis were objects of
veneration because they destroyed the poisonous reptiles which were popularly regarded as the emissaries of the infernal gods." Feri Tradition emphasis on union rather than destruction is an important philosophical shift, 2This is also the Feri name for him, alternately spelled Malik T.1us. The Kurdish Yezidi, interestingly enough, were called "devil worshippers" simply because they acknowledgt·d that W<' havt• a great conAict lodged within our hearts, and that both sides, not just what we think of ;ls "good,"
musl b,· t•mhran·d <'<Jllally.
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congruent with the Feri dictum "I would know myself in all my parts:' In
the Peacock God, earthiness and a sense of danger are wed with beauty
and lightness. Cutting off what we do not like leaves us wounded halfpeople and, in that state, evolution becomes impossible. Learn to love yourself, in all your parts.
Feri legend has it that the Peacock was walking in the Garden of the
Gods when he came upon the mirror of his mother, the Star Goddess. He
gazed into that mirror and exclaimed, "Ha! Behold how beautiful I am!"
He shook his tail until the seven heavens were filled with thunder. There
was glory in all the worlds.
The Peacock God awakens to his beauty and shakes his great tail. He
cracks the sky, creating thunder to announce his presence. The Peacock
God is beautiful and fearsome. Why is he fearsome? Because he dares to be
beautiful, and we fear that beauty. Why is he fearsome? Because he captures
darkness in the eyes shimmering in every feather. Those are the eyes of the
storm and they are portals to other worlds, within ourselves and between
the realms. In myth, he is the fallen angel: pride. But we are reclaiming
pride as he dared to claim his beauty. This can be dangerous to our parts
that wish to remain hidden and small. It can also feel dangerous to relationships or a society that may wish to keep us in line. Melek Taus is that which we fear within ourselves-the darkness and conflict, the glory and
beauty-all the things that we must face to be whole.
What do you fear? What do you desire? Embrace the Peacock. He is glorious abundance.
He will make you wealthy, beautiful, and able to walk in pride. He is the reminder that
you, too, are a God, you have divinity within you. It flashes out every time you see that you
are beautiful. He tells us to make love to each other with passion. When we make love, we
This is a physical fact as well as a metaphysical one. Rise to meet that which you desire, rise
to each occasion. Let your beauty fill the sky with thunder. Bring on the creative storm.
powefs Above: Risincs and Dfeamincs
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The power of desire is potent. In rising to meet it, we remove it from
the realm of pure fantasy and free up the energy of action. Fantasy, while
giving us hope, can also keep us static, becoming just another story that
saps our life force. Fantasy that shifts into desire becomes the energy that
feeds our work and infuses our lives with deep satisfaction. When it is
rooted in fear, envy, or apathy, fantasy remains in the realm of "someday."
The potency of desire brings us into the now, freeing us up to walk more
fully into our lives.
Here are a few things you can do to begin to engage the power of the
Peacock God. Remember, everything worthwhile is dangerous. Your life is
worth the effort.
List all of your desires, no matter how big.
•
What fills your nighttime dreams with fear? Cast a circle, call
•
upon the Peacock, and turn to face that fear.
Take a risk. Do something that is outrageous for you: buy a pea
•
cock blue shirt and wear it to the office. Speak at a city council
meeting about something that touches your heart. Go scuba diving. Say no. Say yes.
Let yourself be sexy.
•
Admit to something that may fill you with shame. Admit to a se
•
cret desire that you may find unacceptable. Look at all your parts.
" Live as big, bright, bold, and beautiful as you can.
The Peacock's power must be tempered by your compassion and will,
otherwise he can spiral out of control. This is another reason he is feared
as well as longed for. He rests beneath the hand of his mother, the Star
Goddess, and her love keeps him in check. His boundless pride and abundant will must be held under the hand of love and creation. Pride and will are good, but all things can f.11l out of balance. So call on the Peacock,
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invite him to enter you, but continue to look in your mirror and open
your heart.
seein<s Beuutv's Bluck Reflection
I wrote about the dark centers i n the Peacock's eyes being portals into
other realms. They are also small representations of his Mother's curved
black mirror of space
. Gazing into a black mirror is not only a traditional
way of scrying-seeing psychic visions-it is also a way to see our own
faces in a new way. You can purchase a special black mirror in an occult
shop or make your own by taking a picture frame and coating one side of
the glass with high gloss black spray paint or ink. You can also put a piece
of shiny black paper or posterboard cut to fit the frame and insert that behind the glass. Fill a shallow bowl with black ink, or gaze upon your reflection in a window at night.3
Set up a candk for your working. Align your Tripk Soul. Ask the Star Goddess to help
you see the parts of you that only emerge in darkness. Ask the Peacock God for a glimpse
through his eyes. Look at your reflection in the black mirror. Let your gaze soften. What
emerges? Ask your reflection the question, "Who are you?" You might be surprised by the answer. This face may have answers to questions that your daylight face wouldn't even think to ask. Take a breath of courage. Listen. Look.
The Star Goddess loved her reflection in the curved mirror of space. The Peacock God
saw himself and filkd the worlds with power. There is beauty in blackness, in secret spaces.
Let yourself look upon it. Breathe in and out. Grow vast.
3My thanks to Mary for this last idea.
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Buluncin<s Imu<se und Reulity
The vastness of possibility shown by the Star Goddess and the Peacock
God may frighten or intimidate us. Most of us need to grow into omselves, what priestess Reya calls being "right sized:' We have been taught that we shouldn't be "too big for our britches" or we hold ourselves back
for fear of what friends or family might say or think of us. We either feel
too big, projecting a false image out in front of ourselves, or too small,
trying to not be noticed in one way or another. Or we may be some combination of the two. Either way, we are in hiding.
To be truly large is to be in balance. When a person projects a "large"
image, taking over conversations or entire rooms or projects, she is likely
overcompensating out of fear and insecurity. She is not living her true size.
The same is true for the person who hides, who never speaks, who asks for
what he wants by asking another person what she wants, who tiptoes into a
room, thereby distracting everyone in it, instead of just walking in to get
what he needs.
What are your tendencies? How do you keep people away from you? How do you crush
your passions and undermine your abilities? How do you try to crush others so they won't
get ahead of you?
I remember struggling with myself, after years of dealing with other
people's projections onto my big, false, performing self. I was attempting
to come into alignment and I was afraid that if I became more powerful, I
would steamroll over others. My good friends, exasperated, kept saying,
"Just go ahead and get bigger!" When I was finally able to begin that
process, it was a relief to all. I became much more helpful to others, more
effective in the world, and developed a greater store of generosity. Years
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later, this doesn't mean that I don't still fall back on insecurity and pettiness when I'm feeling tired or am in a new situation that challenges me, but I can now catch these states more quickly and look at them for whatever
information they hold. Then I can usually take a breath and move on.
Some states are more tenacious than others, but you will not know
what your capacity is until you make the attempt to grow.
Call on the Star Goddess and the Peacock God for help. Take a deep breath and imagine yourse!f as you would like to be. Imagine yourself as competent, confident, loving, and loved. Imagine yourself in your true power. Are you honest about what you can and cannot do? Spend one week stating your true abilities to yourself. Write them down as they come up. Share them with a trusted friend.
As you grow used to this practice, you can start taking more risks with
this form of truth telling. State your true abilities at work or in your community. The more accurately you can state what you can already do, the closer you are to stepping into your desires.
Astrul Truvel
Since we are working in the realms Above, under the guidance and guardianship of Heaven Shiner, held by the Star Goddess, and infused with the confidence of the Peacock, we can take another risk. We can step out of
our bodies for a little while, and, more importantly, practice coming back.
Astral travel is another way of learning to walk in between rational
spaces and into a whole other world. It is also a way to gather more information about the world we live in. It is not a method of escaping our lives; rather, it is another form of expanding more fully into ourselves and all
the realms of the world. If your impulse toward astral travel is to use it as
a form of escape, I would wait, and not use the following practices until
powecs Above: Risin'S a.nd ncea.min'S
2 2 1
you are more firmly rooted in what has come before in this book. Keep
building foundational practices. If astral travel does not open you further
to yourself and the realms you walk in, it will be of no help to your development in the long run. It is always good to question the motivations behind both our fears and our desires.
That said, this work can expand our knowledge of our emotional and
psychic states and help us to get in touch with the unseen realms. My former coven used astral travel as a way to build a space that was our own. We would journey together to our ethereal covenstead and do work, gather information, and meet with guides who could help us with our work. Sometimes people look different on the astral, and this alone can give you a clue into your inner sel£ You may also have different skills, different clothing.
I used to have quite a nice set of armor on the astral! The state of the
armor and how it changed was always a good reflection of how I was feeling emotionally and with my work in the physical world. Things on the astral often appear as symbols in ordinary consciousness. Discovering
your internal symbols can be a key both to your personality and deeper
essence.
One group of activists built a clan house on the astral as a way to continue to meet and do magic and other work even when those who built it were far flung geographically. Other Witches often do magic in this way,
when they've formed strong bonds with sisters and brothers who live a
continent away. They simply tune in at a certain time and date and travel
to a common meeting place. Generally they have agreed upon a method of
entry, for example by visualizing a certain tree in a clearing, with a hollow
in its base that acts as a portal to their space. After the journey, they compare notes over e-mail.
Many of us probably don't believe we can do this, just as many of us
disbelieve our natural psychic or intuitive talents. I hope that these exercises will show you that the technique of astral travel can be practiced and learned just like any other.
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Tfuvefsin<s the Blue sphefe
This is an introduction to astral travel that can help you feel safe in the unknown spaces the first times you attempt to journey.
Use the Castingfrom the Inside Out exercise from Chapter l. Once you feel yourself
encased in the bubble if your own personal blue sphere, imagine that there is a second layer,
a membrane on top that can expand. Let that second layer ease o
ut, until you have the vast
bubble if space around you. Now, imagine that your spirit self begins to rise out if your
body, leaving the small blue sphere for the larger one. Your spirit self is connected to your
physical body by a silver cord that attaches firmly to your navel, like an umbilical cord. For
some people this cord attaches to the base if their spine instead. Let this body rise until it is
floating out beyond your physical self. Let yourself feel what it is like to float, then begin to
fly. Let your arms reach out, and spin your spirit self like a skydiver wheeling through the
sky. You can control your speed, velocity, and height. Experiment. Have fun.
Once you have been out for a while, imagine your spirit self floating back toward your
physical self. Feel your spirit body sink lower and lower, penetrating the small blue sphere
and gently easing itself back into your physical body. Feel your breath moving in your physical body. Inhale. Exhale.
Now let the larger sphere, the container you were floating in, begin to shrink back down,
slowly, as you breathe. Feel it as it comes closer to your own sphere, behind you, below and
above, to each side. Sense it. It grows close enough to touch your personal sphere, your own
casting. There is a flare if blue as the spheres meet and merge fully. You are encased once
again in the sphere you began with. Take a deep breath. Feel your physical body,jeel your feet
firmly beneath you, and let your breath circulate from the soles if your feet to the crown if
your head, running down your arms into your fingertips. Feel how the blue sphere has
matched your Shining Body.
On a big breath, release the blue all around you, letting it return to the aether. You are
left with just your aura and your expanded attention, which you can draw back into yourself if you like, just as in the Deep, Expansive Attention exercise. Or you can simply re-
powers Above: Risincs und nreumincs
223
main in this awareness, letting it Jade as your attention is captured by other things. You can
always return to it. Align your Triple Soul with any energy lift over. Pull your earlobes,
pat your thighs and arms. Say your name three times. Blessed be.