I’m at Center on Halstead chilling out until a meeting for the Brotherhood. Upstairs in the cumfy seating. I’m listening to the Tricky Pixie album, although I may change it in a few minutes. This is a great album but not really fabulous music for writing.

I haven’t written in a few days, largely because I’ve been very busy. Friday evening I went to an oracular Seidh with Diana Paxson that the Brotherhood sponsored. It was the precursor to a weekend intensive that I wasn’t able to attend. I’d never been to a Seidh before, so it was very interesting to see how it differed from oracular and trance work that I’ve done with other people.

The most noticable difference was the comprehensive framework in which the seidh took place. Most of my oracular experience (both as an oracle, and receiving oracle) has been primarily circumstantial. We are in the midst of a larger working, or walking through a sacred space, and the spirits present signal that they have messages which they want to pass on.

Even when oracular or posessory work is intended, I’ve rarely practiced it inside a framework as complex as that Diana teaches. This is not to say that I do so without taking precautions, but that the precautions and preparations are of a different variety.

For instance, most of my posessory work has been done out in nature. I am much more able to open myself up and relinquish control to a spirit outside in nature than I am inside. Dianas practice, in contrast, is generally done with a ritual team of no less than two, and requires a dias with a high seat, and a guide or psychopomp to guard the threads and paths.

I’m interested in experimenting with some of the techniques and framework that my friends learned over the weekend intensive.

Saturday and Sunday were not as busy as they could have been, but both were rather full. Lots of little things got done. I am almost done with putting everything away in my room, and I’ve gotten a really solid start on a programming project that I’ve been contemplating for a while.

Today has been pretty quick. Work is quite busy, but most of it is actual development work and not support. I really appreciate that. I’m a .Net developer who for the last 18 months hasn’t had much opportunity to develop in .Net. That seems to be changing strongly now that our focus has moved to new development and away from support.

I also discovered that I can take advantage of some online training courses to increase my financial knowledge quite a bit. I’m hoping to work through a bunch of it before it goes away this summer.

Beyond that, I’m spending a lot of my time thinking about what my focus needs to be. At the seidh I asked a question of the oracle. I asked what I should do with all the power that’s been freed up now that I’m a member of the Inner Order of the Brotherhood. I have so many possible outlets for that power that I’m having trouble picking where to spend it.

The answer was that I need to find the door that my power unlocks. The most direct interpretation of this is that I’ve been granted all this for a reason, and that I need to determine the purpose of that power. It is best to envision my power as a key, and find the door that it unlocks. As the oracle told me, the power is wasted if not put to it’s proper use. I just need to figure out what that use is.

I could easily be annoyed by that answer. It’s not really very clear or straight forward. One could say that the answer is just another form of the question. This is one of the troubles with oracles. Objectively, it is very rare that you get solid answers. Occasionally you may, and it is far more likely in posessed oracle. But in general, the response comes back in a set of symbols that mean something to the person whose query is being answered.

To the observer, those symbols are usually never an answer. This is one of the main conflicts between skeptics, practitioners, and believers. A skeptic almost never allows for personal revelation. A believer is convinced of the truth of the oracle and works to understand it’s meaning. A practitioner knows that the oracles accuracy is less important than it’s usefulness.

If an oracle gives you untrue information that leads you to a better understanding of the query and yourself, the oracles job has been sucessful. All forms of divination concern themselves with the path of life. That is their purpose. An oracle is no different. The value is not in answering questions about the noumenal universe. We have our physical senses for that. It is regarding questions of the life that oracular work shines. This is not to say that the oracle should not be consulted about other things. Traditionally an oracle would be consulted for information on when to plant, and what fate held for the coming seasons.

A lot of times I think oracles get a bad rap, because their messages seem vague. But often I think the messages are vague because we ask vague questions. How can someone expect a precise answer to “Where will the next few months take me?”

I’ve decided that I am going to be doing some definite focusing on trance and journeywork. I don’t think I’ll ever be a master seer, but I feel a calling to do more faring forth. I want to be more aware of the spirits around me, and better commune with them and the gods. Towards this I am considering starting to do some sort of daily practice regarding spirit communication. I may begin by doing a daily divination. After a bit of consistency with runes, ogham, or tarot I will begin to start trying to contact specific spirits or beings.

@si_storm and I need to get together this week to prep ourselves for the workshop and ritual on Saturday. I’m looking forward to FireDance quite a bit this year. Alright, that’s it for the night.