Week 1 Day 2 - Indices, Documentation, Constellations, Spellwriting
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persebekSo, I have begun a document to contain all this work for the time being, in unedited form, so I can work with it later. I started with an introduction, added a table of contents, a complete list of all the prompts and links to them, a definitions page I can add to as the year progresses, and then the entries I'm writing into 750words.com.
I have also ordered a notebook with numbered pages to use as a notebook/journal/test workbook as I piece together what kind of grimoire this is going to be. I think deciding what kind of physical journal to put all this in will depend a lot on how much information I have at hand, and what I feel will fill it best. I don't want to buy a notebook and it's too small. But likewise, I don't want to go for a 600 page notebook and it's only half-full. So we'll see. It's probably a decision I'll make later down the line when I have more polished work and have more information organised and ready for transfer.
I have also decided I'm not going to do herbs and gems, because, quite frankly, they do not make up a very big part of my practice, and also I have done herbs to death so. Since I got the Deck of Stars by Dr Sara Webb for Christmas, I think I'll use that as a guide instead. It has 50 constellations on oracle-deck-sized cards, with an image on the front, and other information on the back.
The plan is to shuffle them, then pull one each week to work on it. I'll decide if I want to add another two to make it a full year, or to just give myself two rest weeks if I need them. We'll see.
But the first constellation I pulled this week was Sextans, the Sextant, which, once I started looking into it, turned out to be a very interesting constellation. A very recent one, too, created by Hevelius, a Polish astronomer. Named it after the sextant he lost in a housefire a decade earlier, or so I read.
Obviously I went down the sextant rabbit hole, and only once I saw the photos of the mural sextants did I remember I'd seen one in a Brady Haran video (I think) when he was visiting one of the telescopes in South America, iirc. WELL, it was that, or a video at the Royal Society or something where there was a very old sextant on a wall idk idk. But anyway!
That was a nice rabbit hole to go down. I kind of knew how they worked, but it was nice to look into that a bit deeper. And I think it's a fitting constellation to start with, as the sextant is used to determine the position of stars, and for sailors, used to navigate and find their way. It feels like a fitting omen for this journey, where the stars will guide my way through this challenge.
This deck, of course, isn't meant as an oracle deck, but I may end up using it that way, or at least playing around with it. I may do that throughout the year and see what my results are. I think there's some divination prompts coming up in the year, so I may do it then as well. See if I can get some personal associations with these cards to use for divination.
Like, the sextant has no lore or mythology associated with it, but just taking the symbolism and use of a sextant, it could be used to indicate that you're on the right track, or that you should trust in your guides. The path is there, the end is in sight. You will be able to find your way through a messy period of your life, use the tools you have at hand. You can find your way through as you have the sextant to guide you.
Which isn't a terrible way to look at the constellation. Other constellations will have more lore and such attached to them, but I'll use some of the research I do on them to get my own meanings out. And all this can be put together into my Book of Stars, which I have wanted to make for a long time now. A catalogue of stars and constellations and their lore, information, and anything else relevant to them.
Also I know from the list of prompts that there's a month coming up for stars, astrology, and planetary magic, but I'll just keep doing my star lore and see where that comes from. May do meditation with them, see where that leads me. See if I can connect to their spirits.
Also, for reference, all the webpages I looked at for Sextans:
https://www.astronomytrek.com/constellations/sextans/
https://www.eso.org/public/australia/images/eso1114b/
https://earthsky.org/constellations/sextans-the-sextant/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextant_(astronomy)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mural_instrument
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_classification#Class_A
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextans_in_Chinese_astronomy
http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/sextans.html
Just so I can follow up my research trail later down the line when I want to add in more specific information into my Book of Stars.
The third part of today's prompt is about spellwriting 101. How do I write spells? How do I set them up? What components do I use? What is the format? How do I do it? What does it require? From materials to timing and circumstances?
And that is definitely a page I will add to my document, as that will evolve over time and for the spell in question. I don't always follow specific formats and such, as a lot of my spellwork can be quite improvised and on the fly. I know mostly the kind of stuff that works and if it needs doing, it needs doing.
But I am working towards incorporating planetary energy into my work. I have used planetary days and hours to tap into specific planetary energy to help with spellwork, and I have found the planetary kamea sigils to be particularly potent for me. So I'm going to keep working on them.
But for other spellwork, it's combining herbs, gems, incenses/resins/etc into a jar or pouch, and enchanting it, and giving it power and energy to do the thing i need doing. It's pretty simple stuff, and a lot of the items needed are picked based on instinct too. Sometimes I look up stuff to get an idea of what might be useful, but other times, I just pull stuff out that I think is going to work.
I do have something of a template when I write up my spellwork though, in it's final form. It has a title, purpose/instructions, then ingredient list, then the actual steps to do the thing. This can be fairly simple, or it can be more complex depending on what's needed. But that works for me for the time being.
I have also ordered a notebook with numbered pages to use as a notebook/journal/test workbook as I piece together what kind of grimoire this is going to be. I think deciding what kind of physical journal to put all this in will depend a lot on how much information I have at hand, and what I feel will fill it best. I don't want to buy a notebook and it's too small. But likewise, I don't want to go for a 600 page notebook and it's only half-full. So we'll see. It's probably a decision I'll make later down the line when I have more polished work and have more information organised and ready for transfer.
I have also decided I'm not going to do herbs and gems, because, quite frankly, they do not make up a very big part of my practice, and also I have done herbs to death so. Since I got the Deck of Stars by Dr Sara Webb for Christmas, I think I'll use that as a guide instead. It has 50 constellations on oracle-deck-sized cards, with an image on the front, and other information on the back.
The plan is to shuffle them, then pull one each week to work on it. I'll decide if I want to add another two to make it a full year, or to just give myself two rest weeks if I need them. We'll see.
But the first constellation I pulled this week was Sextans, the Sextant, which, once I started looking into it, turned out to be a very interesting constellation. A very recent one, too, created by Hevelius, a Polish astronomer. Named it after the sextant he lost in a housefire a decade earlier, or so I read.
Obviously I went down the sextant rabbit hole, and only once I saw the photos of the mural sextants did I remember I'd seen one in a Brady Haran video (I think) when he was visiting one of the telescopes in South America, iirc. WELL, it was that, or a video at the Royal Society or something where there was a very old sextant on a wall idk idk. But anyway!
That was a nice rabbit hole to go down. I kind of knew how they worked, but it was nice to look into that a bit deeper. And I think it's a fitting constellation to start with, as the sextant is used to determine the position of stars, and for sailors, used to navigate and find their way. It feels like a fitting omen for this journey, where the stars will guide my way through this challenge.
This deck, of course, isn't meant as an oracle deck, but I may end up using it that way, or at least playing around with it. I may do that throughout the year and see what my results are. I think there's some divination prompts coming up in the year, so I may do it then as well. See if I can get some personal associations with these cards to use for divination.
Like, the sextant has no lore or mythology associated with it, but just taking the symbolism and use of a sextant, it could be used to indicate that you're on the right track, or that you should trust in your guides. The path is there, the end is in sight. You will be able to find your way through a messy period of your life, use the tools you have at hand. You can find your way through as you have the sextant to guide you.
Which isn't a terrible way to look at the constellation. Other constellations will have more lore and such attached to them, but I'll use some of the research I do on them to get my own meanings out. And all this can be put together into my Book of Stars, which I have wanted to make for a long time now. A catalogue of stars and constellations and their lore, information, and anything else relevant to them.
Also I know from the list of prompts that there's a month coming up for stars, astrology, and planetary magic, but I'll just keep doing my star lore and see where that comes from. May do meditation with them, see where that leads me. See if I can connect to their spirits.
Also, for reference, all the webpages I looked at for Sextans:
https://www.astronomytrek.com/constellations/sextans/
https://www.eso.org/public/australia/images/eso1114b/
https://earthsky.org/constellations/sextans-the-sextant/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextans
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextant_(astronomy)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mural_instrument
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stellar_classification#Class_A
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sextans_in_Chinese_astronomy
http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/sextans.html
Just so I can follow up my research trail later down the line when I want to add in more specific information into my Book of Stars.
The third part of today's prompt is about spellwriting 101. How do I write spells? How do I set them up? What components do I use? What is the format? How do I do it? What does it require? From materials to timing and circumstances?
And that is definitely a page I will add to my document, as that will evolve over time and for the spell in question. I don't always follow specific formats and such, as a lot of my spellwork can be quite improvised and on the fly. I know mostly the kind of stuff that works and if it needs doing, it needs doing.
But I am working towards incorporating planetary energy into my work. I have used planetary days and hours to tap into specific planetary energy to help with spellwork, and I have found the planetary kamea sigils to be particularly potent for me. So I'm going to keep working on them.
But for other spellwork, it's combining herbs, gems, incenses/resins/etc into a jar or pouch, and enchanting it, and giving it power and energy to do the thing i need doing. It's pretty simple stuff, and a lot of the items needed are picked based on instinct too. Sometimes I look up stuff to get an idea of what might be useful, but other times, I just pull stuff out that I think is going to work.
I do have something of a template when I write up my spellwork though, in it's final form. It has a title, purpose/instructions, then ingredient list, then the actual steps to do the thing. This can be fairly simple, or it can be more complex depending on what's needed. But that works for me for the time being.
