An Intention to Guide Meditation Practice

Today, as I stand at the axis of the 2Three Worlds, and center of the Seven Sacred Directions3,
     I am grateful for the opportunities granted me by the gift of incarnation4,
     supported by the blessings of the gods and spirits whose unseen hands
     guide my steps. May I continue to be be shepherded by the adepts, mystics,
     and masters of old, those upon whose shoulders I stand5 so that I, in turn, may
     one day be found fit to shepherd others on the path of the Mysteries6.

Let me not squander this precious opportunity to free myself of delusion, fear,
    suffering, ignorance and all things that occlude the vigorous and vital flow of
    energy through my channels. May my energy body be healed, healthy, and whole
    that it may serve the highest purposes of fate, will, and Ma'at7.

May I practice this day and every day with discipline, determination, effortlessness,
    and equanimity. May I encounter all mind-states without attachment or aversion8.
    May I be steadfast in the face of all obstacles and difficulty, allowing
    all discomfort to be a means of insight, self-knowledge, and illumination.

May I enter without effort and clarity of mind into the Sacred Flame9 at my center,
    the inner gateway of Emptiness, the silent doorway to all worlds.
    Let me be ever-guided by its illumination and warmth and the blessings of

    my Akh10 who beckons me ever-forward so I may one day be worthy to be called
    Justified11 among the Ancient and Shining Ones12.

*Notes: Included to demonstrate that each turn of phrase has a purpose. Where certain concepts are open to interpretation, the interpretations are my own, guided my by own knowledge and experience.

1. This Meditation Intention is based both upon the intention I've been using to guide my meditation practice for a few years, but has been adapted to more clearly align itself to the Quareia curriculum.
2. Land, Sea, and Sky...Celestial World, Mortal World, Underworld...or any other tripartite conception of the Universe.
3. North, East, South, West, Above, Below, and Center
4. Acknowledgement that incarnation is truly a gift for which we should be grateful.
5. Acknowledgement and showing gratitude for the unseen assistance we receive from those beings that are, essentially, our spiritual ancestors who may or may not be our blood ancestors.
6. A pledge of willingness to be of service to those who come after us on the path.

7. Recognizing that Self-Realization/Enlightenment isn't merely a change of heart and mind, but instead rests on the cleaning, aligning, and strengthening of our energy body so that it is reflective of its own natural perfection...without blockages and pollution and dedicating our enlightenment to the principles of Ma'at.

8. One of the keys to fruitful meditation practice....being ok with what is and rejecting nothing that arises within consciousness.
9. Your inner, sacred Flame, doorway to the Void.
10. The highest aspect of the multiple soul, the Higher or Divine Self

11. He or she who, upon being judged worthy, is able to "go to their Ka." (ie. reunite with their Divine Self.

12. The gods and great powers

Compassion and Cages

“You can do what you decide to do — but you cannot decide what you will decide to do.” 
― Sam Harris, Free Will


Gods know I'm as guilty as anyone else, so I don't excuse myself in the words that follow. This article is just as much for me as it is for anyone reading it.

We need, collectively, to be able to demonstrate compassion to those with whom we strongly disagree. That compassion is born of, among other things, understanding that, to a large extent, each of us is the product of our experiences and environment.

I do believe that there are deeper forces at play in who we are and who we eventually become, but for the sake of the discussion that follows, experience and environment are enough.

The beliefs, perspectives, and values we carry are, to a greater or lesser extent, the product of our culture and upbringing. Like a fish in a lake, our culture is the very substance wherein we live and move, to such an extent that we are often blind to its existence around, or impact on, us.

The cultural realities we have come to accept are not revealed truth, they are merely relative realities that would have been completely different had we been born and raised in a different time and place. For the most part, we are who we are because of when and where we are. That may be an uncomfortable truth, but truth it is.

If we can but realize this, we will realize that we needn't hate those with whom we disagree. We can wholly reject another's principles, values, beliefs, and ideals while still recognizing, as they say, "but for the grace of God go I." We may have been those who are the targets of our scorn, mockery, and ire, if only we had their life experience or lived within the confines of their paradigm.

This recognition does not completely lift the onus of an individual's responsibility or agency. Instead, by recognizing that we are, in many ways, the product of our time and place, we are able to be more cognizant of the limits of responsibility and agency in regards to what we believe.

Free will is only operative within the constraints of culturally prescribed boundaries. Because most of humanity is not composed of visionaries, mystics, artists, etc., those who seem to be able to see beyond the limits of culture and time, it behooves us to accept the limits of most individuals' capacities to exercise what we commonly refer to as free will.

Only those who can see the confines of the cage within which they live can exercise the choice to choose freedom. One cannot escape a prison one fails to recognize.

Culture, traditions, religions, etc. are all, in a manner of speaking, cages. At different times in our lives any of these structures are not only useful, they are necessary to provide the stability needed for healthy growth within a culture. However, it is one thing to know and accept the boundaries of a cage that are at variance comforting, helpful, and stabilizing, it is entirely something else to believe that one's preferred structure is universally valid or divinely mandated truth for all people at all times.

Recognizing that until we reach a very refined level of awareness, a level of awareness wherein a chosen structure becomes recognized for the purely aesthetic choice it is (as opposed to the vessel of certainty and truth we once accepted it to be) we are all bound to a greater or lesser extent within our personal cage. This awareness, that we too are bound, can be a source of profound understanding and compassion.

If you or I are not, yet, fully free, then we cannot expect those with whom we have strong disagreement to be fully free of blinders, limitations and boundaries (ie. their cage) either. Our political and ideological enemies are merely trapped in cage different from our own.

However, despite strenuous and valid philosophical/Ideological conflict with those with whom we share little in terms of values and vision, we needn't hate those who wish us to share their cage because, for them, that cage is the only world they know.

Reject the cage, even hate the cage, but we needn't hate those trapped within.

Prayer to Isis Panthea - A Modern Pagan's Prayer to the Great Goddess as Ground of Being

This is going to be, for me, a relatively brief blog post as its purpose is to impart the words I was inspired to put to paper, so to speak, upon arising from meditation this evening.

In all my years as a Pagan magician and mystic (30+yrs at this point) I have come to understand that all I need to know or experience, in terms of spiritual awareness, has ever been made available to me via the vehicle of committed spiritual practice. No amount of study, stimulating conversation with either like-minded or challenging souls, or intellectual rumination can help one come to terms with spiritual, magickal, and mystical realities the way dedicated spiritual practice can.

Spiritual awareness is, in this context, akin to falling in love.

No amount of reading up on the subject of falling in love can truly prepare one for the reality of what it really means to fall in love. Of course, one can read all about the evolutionary benefits of pair bonding, the neuro-chemical tides released by the brain when one feels love, or any number of brute, and often sadly reductionistic, facts on the subject of love as a biological reality. One may even accomplish being seen as either quite intelligent or as an insufferable bore, depending on the company one keeps, due to the ability to regurgitate such trivia on demand.

However, despite the fact one's brain is brimming with others' thoughts on the subject of love, none of this second-hand knowledge will be more than a footnote in the awareness of one who has actually fallen in love. The thoughts of others on the subject of love are swept away in a tsunami of personal experience that makes pale and shallow the pedestrian intellectualizing that once served as truth.

Such is the experience of the Divine for those who are willing to set aside being armchair magicians and mystics and who, instead, are willing to do the work and experience for ourselves what others merely talk about.

My theology is distinctly monistic (basically Panentheistic Dialectical Monism) in approach and though, nowadays, monism seems to have fallen on hard times within some sectors of the Pagan Community, I've never been one to pay much, if any, attention to the theological squabbles of others, I have always sought instead to follow the path of practice, study, and personal gnosis.

Isis Rising by Gilbert Williams

Prayer to Isis Panthea

It is not I who love, but you who love through me.

It is not I who touch, but you who touch through me.

It is not I who embrace, but you who embrace through me.

It is not I who perceive, but you who perceive through me.

It is not I who feel joy, but you who feel joy through me.

It is not I who weep, but you who weep through me.

It is not I who sorrow, but you who sorrow through me.

It is not I who rage and anguish at cruelty and injustice, but you whose righteousness is manifest both through the severity of justice the mercy of compassion who moves through me.

It is not I who reach out, but you who reach out through me.

It is not I who bring healing, but you who heal through me.

It is not my virtue through which I live in accord with Ma’at, but by you who are the heart of all virtue.

It is not I who breathe, but you who breathe through me.

It is you who are my Mother.

It is you who are my Lover.

It is you who are my Beloved.

It is you who are Sovereign of the Elements.

It is you who are Mother of the Gods.

It is you who are the Supreme Mystery whose veil none have lifted.

It is you who are both Seeker and That Which is Sought, both the Sacred Journey and its Destination.

It is not I who live, but you who live through me.

When I breathe my last breath, It is not I who shall die, but you who shall pass through the Gates of Death and it is not I who shall be reborn, but you who shall be reborn again to participate in the Great Dance, you who are dancer, the stage, and song.

Praise unto you Mother Isis, you who are my Guide, my Wisdom, and none other than my own Divine Self.

The Weighing of the Heart....or...How Not to Get Eaten by Ammit

The Weighing of the Heart

"Forgiveness and love, cannot be earned, deserved, bought, sold, won, or forced. They are a gift and should never be taken for granted or expected. Only accepted."

-Hussein Nishah


The "Weighing of the Heart" ritual seen in the Book of Coming forth by Day is, for me, like most spiritual teachings, reflective of something deeper than a plain reading would otherwise indicate. On it's face, the Weighing of the Heart appears to be simple "be good or get punished" morality teaching not unlike the Annihilationist view of Hell espoused by some members of the Christian faith. Sure, it's more merciful than the eternal torment motif presented by traditional Christian theology, but it's still a simplistic "be good, get rewarded" "be bad, get punished" morality the likes of which I, admittedly have little time for. Like most sacred concepts, I think that the key to the reality beyond the metaphor is to be found, not in a simplistic "be good and don't do bad things" morality (which is inarguably a wise manner in which to comport one's self), but in a deeper reading of what the *Weighing of the Heart actually implies.

How does one, even metaphorically, place one's heart and it's burdens against a feather and expect it to weight less? It seems impossible because, on its face, it is. But, like most moral dictates reflective of spiritual mastery, the imagery, the metaphor, is extreme so as to make a stark point. Not unlike Christ's command that those who would choose to follow him  must (according to Luke 14:26) hate their families and even their lives in order to be his disciple, the imagery of the weighing of the heart poses a difficult or even impossible dilemma for the soul about to face judgment.

 The heart's weight is, mythically, judged against the 42 Negative Confessions, which are a set of precepts in alignment with Ma'at who is both the goddess of Divine Law and the personification of that Law. Upon reading the Negative Confessions, the reader, if honest, will certainly come to the inescapable conclusion that Ammit awaits and his or her soul is doomed to be devoured by the great beast. The challenge of the Negative Confessions is that it is effectively, in my opinion (and experience of Divinity), impossible to have failed to violate any number of Divine Principles over the course of one's lifetime (many times). The 42 Negative Confessions are a blind, or in other words, a smokescreen through which the uninitiated cannot see. A literal approach to the Weighing of the Soul leads to a decidedly fatalistic conclusion because all humans stumble, fall and fail from time to time. It's part and parcel of the human condition. Fortunately, the 42 Negative Confessions are a symbol that point the way to the truth. When the wise present an impossibility (a hyperbolic spiritual teaching in this case) it is in order to cause the initiate to look at the problem from different perspective. No spiritual challenge is insurmountable because such challenges are corrective, educational or initiatory in nature and not sadistic or punitive.

In the case of the Weighing of the Heart and the 42 Negative Confessions, one cannot get around the law, one must transcend it, finding the law behind the written law.

The fact is that we will all do things, even unintentionally, that are ethically/morally questionable at best or cruel and destructive at worst. Such unintentional "sins" against ourselves, others and the gods are unavoidable, though such missteps should sharply diminish in frequency as one gains wisdom. To have a heavy heart, a heart heavier than a feather,  is to bear, unto one's death, the guilt of unforgiven regret. This is the weight of one's sins. Not that we won't feel regret, we will from time to time, but we needn't be crushed under it's weight and we certainly do not need to carry until our last breath.

How then  do we transcend the guilt fed by regret and cause our heart to be weightless?

One lifts the burdens from one's heart through forgiveness, authentic self-forgiveness. Many methods of forgiveness of self and others have been proposed and, depending on the individual, they can work, however, the type of forgiveness I am going to propose dovetails with the bigger picture of the soul's evolution.

To forgive in such a way as to have a heart lighter than a feather is to do more than try to let go of the pain and emotional charge of one's regrets, but to instead see the necessary letting go as a side effect of a fundamental shift in consciousness. I am referring to a shift in consciousness that allows one to see the thread of one's life from a broader perspective, a perspective more akin to that of one's HGA, Higher Self, or the gods themselves. This is the perspective of clarity and wisdom undimmed by the ignorance of the ego-self, through its selfishness and thoughtlessness, that sinned against the gods and one's fellow man in the first place. The key is getting off the game board entirely.

Albert Einstein once said, "“We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them," and he is correct. One's paradigm must shift so as to become more expansive, to see more broadly than we have before. The most elegant way, the way most attuned to our evolution as magicians, mystics and the wise is to actively and dedicatedly commit to our spiritual growth. The change in perspective I'm referring to is the natural outgrowth, the reward if you will, of fundamentally transforming the way in in which you view both yourself and life in general.

Seeking the face of the Divine whether one calls this the quest for god-realization, self-realization, enlightenment, nirvikalpa samadhi, apotheosis, becoming one of the ancestors, etc. is the method by which one develops the necessary lightness of heart the gods require. Consciously attending to one's spiritual evolution through practices in tune with your personal path, practices such as meditation, qigong, yoga, theurgic ritual, devotional rites, or those means that most suit you is the key to the door that grants access to the understanding of  the law at work behind the 42 Negative Confessions. With this attainment, you may see yourself as the gods see you, the being that wears the face you wore before incarnation, the being whose essence never left their side and who is essentially of one substance with them.

For those that fail to achieve the necessary lightness of heart, being found wanting by the gods, the slavering jaws of Ammit await. Ammit's jaws are not the end, they do however represent the catabolic spiritual process by which the personality is scrubbed from the soul in question, leaving in it's place only forgetfulness, basic patterns of consciousness and, usually, mere echoes (at most) of one's prior existence before being "eaten." Thus is the soul again set to reincarnate into the physical world with all of its learnings and lessons. This is the death offered by Ammit, the annihilation of the personality you know, in this incarnation, as you. For most, this is a terrifying proposition.

The continuation of the personality intact, enlightened, and knowingly part of a far greater whole is true immortality beyond the Wheel of Return This is the gift of the heart which is lighter than a feather. Each of us, metaphorically speaking, has been devoured by Ammit over and over again lifetime after lifetime and most of us will be devoured again. However, those of us who choose to cultivate the awareness that will allow us to stand tall amongst the Shining Ones in the Hall of Osiris will see and know ourselves as they know us.....

As Divine.



(* Note that what is contained herein is a modern Pagan theological perspective on the Weighing of the Heart, the Laws of Ma'at, the 42 Negative Confessions and what they represent. This is not an attempt to recreate ancient Egyptian models of thought and no claim is made to that effect by the author. This article is the result of the author's personal gnosis, study and understanding and is not for those of a reconstructionist mindset.)