A love for learning.

This week has been AWESOME when it comes to things learned and done. I have begun building a symbolic world tree for use on my alter. I got the idea from a picture from Ian's book. It's assembled, today I will stain it. I also made a stand and frame for a beautiful sounding bronze bell I got from Good Will. It is also assembled and needs staining. Pictures to come so stay tuned!

On Monday I got the chance to attend a 3 hour lecture on "southern Conjure" by Orion Foxwood. I have attended a lecture once before by Orion at Pantheacon. This time we were lucky enough to have him come to our home town. Though I am not strongly interested in this type of magick at this time, the knowledge and history I learned were great, and Orion is very much an entertainer when he lectures. I highly recommend others to take the time to attend some of his lectures.

Also on Monday I got the first of the books in on Druidry that I ordered. This one is "A brief History of the Druids" by Peter Berresford Ellis. This book is amazing! I am learning so much it's hard to even put into words. As I read it I feel like I am soaking up each word and meaning. The stories are great! In fact I even learned a whole lot about my wife's ancestors. Things even she didn't know, and she knows a good bit! It's cool kinda feeling when reading a scholarly work such as this book and see your wife's ancestors discussed and written about. As Robert said the other weekend to me "if you had half a brain in your head you'd marry that woman." (the joke being that he was AT the wedding).

I have pretty well mastered ADF ritual format, or at least Ian's version that he writes about in Draiocht. There are still a number of other "smaller" or shorter rituals that I want to memorize, and I am no working on those. Things like cleansings, simply hallowings, short dedications and the like. One thing I found interesting listening to Orion was that some of the types of spells he mentioned southern conjurers do are also in Ian Corrigans book. It was cool to see the cross reference. I Am not sure if this is because Ian himself pulled these spells from southern conjure, or if it is from the cultural mixing of magic that happened in the Appalachians and American south that Orion spoke of. Specifically I am thinking of the "uncrossing" spell. Also I am really enjoying the meditations and visualizations in Ian's book. There is a strong melding of JMG's druid magick system and ADF/Ian's system going on in me these days. Fitting the two together hasn't been difficult.

Ok, enough talk, time to get back to my books!