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templeofulchtar · 4 years

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I don’t normally post my fiction here, but this one seemed applicable. Enjoy!

Arctic Rose

It always is the same on these cold, clear nights. The Angel of Sky spreads his luminous wings, painting the aethers with shimmering tapestries of color. The creatures below pause their activities. The angel glimpses their smiles of wonder, hears their hushed whispers and sees their fingers point skyward. This is good. It gladdens him to see them looking up, even if the artistry he creates was never for them.

Some of them might know him as Sahaquiel, but that is not his name. It is merely his title. In prior epochs there were other Sahaquiels, other Angels of Sky. He is merely the latest to hold this office, and he prefers another, far older name for himself.

A name now spoken only by one.

He flies north, following Polaris. Below, the human settlements become fewer and farther between. The roads narrow and finally disappear as the horizon opens before him, crystalline beneath the blazing corona of verdant flame which fills the sky. The angel has outdone himself, he thinks. His lover cannot fail to appear tonight.

But patience is required, and the angel wishes he had more of it. Celestial entities should have little care for the passage of time, he thinks, yet he cannot force himself to settle. He fidgets under the weight of lost aeons until at last, in the far, far distance, a figure appears.

The Angel of Sky would have recognized him even without the battered sword he grips in his bloodied hand. Would have recognized him even without the trail of spent gray feathers that drift from his wings like wind-blown ashes. Would have recognized him even if the pristine snow beneath his feet did not turn blood-red with every step he takes.

This angel is known to humankind as Simikiel. They speak of him in whispers, scrawling his name in Enochian script using their own blood for ink, hoping that their self-inflicted pain might serve to appease him. They summon him to their causes, petitioning him to right the wrongs they believe they’ve been dealt, and Simikiel obliges—for a price.

A terrible price, for Simikiel is the Angel of Vengeance, and his sword cuts both ways.

But the Angel of Sky does not call him Simikiel, nor does he summon him for any purpose other than himself. He hurries across the ice, no longer caring about the supposed virtues of patience, and meets his visitor halfway. He extends both hands, palms empty, and waits. His visitor pauses with a few steps between them.

“Nice work,” he says, nodding toward the dancing curtains of light. “Looks like you’ve been busy.”

His voice—which humans describe as ‘resonant,’ 'cutting’ and 'bleak,’ likening it to an Arctic wind or a surgeon’s knife—carries a faint lift, as if the speaker truly is amused. He seems to be looking at the sky, but it is hard to know what he sees with the upper half of his face being an empty void. Rare is the mortal who can look upon that void without cowering in abject terror. But the Angel of Sky relaxes, certain now that he has been recognized.

“It seems you have been busy, too,” he murmurs with sorrow, noting that the blood-caked hands have yet to clasp his own.

“They’ve been keeping me occupied, yes.” The Angel of Vengeance runs an index-digit along his sword-edge as if testing it. A drop of scarlet falls to the snow, and a single barbed rose unfurls, blooming in the frozen air with unexpected sweetness. “Humankind finds no end of reasons to summon me.”

It is a rote greeting by now; a script they have followed on countless nights.

“If only they would change,” the Angel of Sky muses. “If only we could inspire them to evolve beyond their petty cruelties…” He trails off as the Angel of Vengeance smiles.

It is a terrible sight, one that could freeze the blood of mortals and send them scurrying, but the Angel of Sky does not flinch. He knows the other far too well. Recognizes his gestures, his mannerisms—and yes, his beauty—even in his current form. The office to which he has been assigned as punishment for his rebellion might have twisted his outward appearance, but inside he remains himself, his grace and majesty unchanged.

“What if they did evolve?” the Angel of Vengeance queries. “Do you imagine anything would change for us?”

“Surely it would have to,” the Angel of Sky responds. “Our work here would be done.”

“Yours, maybe. But you are bound to this mud-ball by choice. Not as a punishment for…” the Angel of Vengeance pauses, thin lips curling in a bitter smirk, “bad behavior.”

“It has been too long!” the Angel of Sky exclaims in sudden anger. “You have been punished long enough.”

“Careful,” the Angel of Vengeance chides. “Daring to question the wisdom of Primus or his minions can get you in, shall we say, a world of trouble.” He chuckles coldly. “But you could return. I’m sure he’d take you back.”

True enough. The Thirteen who guarded the throne of Primus had made that more than clear. If the Angel of Sky were to return to their bosom, they would see it as a form of repentance. But he could not repent his love.

“I will not leave without you. You know that.”

“All too well, my love.” The Angel of Vengeance wraps his scarlet fingers around the hilt of his sword, leaning on it as a sage might upon a staff. A gust of wind lifts the snow, frosting the rose’s thorns as the two of them fall silent.

It is always the same on these cold, clear nights, a stalemate they’ve reached many times. The Angel of Sky suspects they’ve had this debate so often that it has reshaped the crystalline structure of the snow itself, and that if its geometry could be translated to sound, the sound that would emerge would be that of two angels arguing. The Angel of Sky does not wish to argue tonight, and so he plucks the rose, allowing its bittersweet perfume to waft between them.

“This,“ he says. "This is the essence of your truth. Not what they say it is, and not this false image that the duties of your office have imprinted upon you.”

“And you can still see that?”

“Of course. I will always see your truth.”

This earns him another smile. A softer smile, and one which the Angel of Sky is certain no one else has ever seen. It transforms the face of Simikiel into that which he remembers from time long past. “I will not bow,“ the Angel of Vengeance warns. "I will not go to Primus begging for mercy or forgiveness, nor will I play Unicron’s games anymore. If that means I remain earthbound, so be it.”

“Yes,“ the Angel of Sky replies, hearing in those words an echo of his own truth. "I know.”

“I cannot change what I am, even for you,” the Angel of Vengeance adds, his tone softening.

The Angel of Sky lowers his gaze. “And I would not want you to.”

This is only part of the terrible price he must pay for his love, and yet. When bloodied fingers curl between his own, he knows it is worth it. Their hands mesh, locking tight. The rose is crushed between their joined palms, a blood oath made and remade without need for words, and the snow beneath them erupts in a riot of night-blooming flowers.

It is then that the feathers fall from both sets of wings, luminous and ashen swirling together in the dark. As they settle together in their fragrant, living berth, they are both transformed. Armored frames gleam in the starlight as they move together, relearning and remembering.

We are not truly angels. Our kind only seems as such in the eyes of mortals, but we are a people like any other, a people with loves and sorrows and follies, only on a grander scale than humankind could possibly imagine.

In the long contentment that follows, the Angel of Vengeance whispers his lover’s name—his true name. Skyfire.

And the Angel of Sky whispers back. Starscream.

“There is another way,” Skyfire adds, perhaps an eternity later. “A third way.”

“Conquest?” Starscream rolls lazily to stretch across Skyfire’s chest, his sharp chin pillowed on Skyfire’s canopy. “It’s been tried. I can report firsthand that it’s the kind of rebellion that can get you kicked out of both hell and heaven.”

“I am aware.”

“So what are you suggesting?”

Skyfire studies the sky above, observing its shifting veils of color. The yellow and green indicate oxygen; atomic nitrogen makes blue, while purple is created by molecular nitrogen. He knows all of this, somehow, as if remembering it from some distant world long past, and something shifts. Solidifies, as if time itself has been reshaped.

“Humanity,” he says, sensing the opening of a gate. It is as if their loving has altered the fabric of reality itself. “Their dreams and imagination.” Skyfire pauses to absorb this sudden understanding. “That is a world to which we could escape, and neither the above nor the below would be able to reach us. We would remain earthbound, yes. But we would also be free.”

Scarlet optics study him narrowly. “Nice thought, but—” A curl of wind-driven snow materializes into a scroll, which a bloodied hand snatches from midair. “Saved by a summons,” Simikiel says, reading it over with a smirk. “Humans are marvelously imaginative where it comes to dreaming up ways to do each other in. Would you like to hear what this one says?”

Skyfire shakes his head. “I know they’re not perfect, but—”

“They’re little monsters.” Simikiel rises. “But this was fun. Let’s do it again soon.”

The gate is closing, and Skyfire… Sahaquiel… can feel it. He scrambles up, recapturing Simikiel’s hand. “I have seen another side of them. When I paint the skies and they look up to glimpse something beyond their earthly concerns, I see light in them, and wonder. We could find the ones who are like that. We could…”

“Could what, Skyfire?” Simikiel’s tone is challenging, yet he gazes at Skyfire as if seeing him for the first time. As if he really wants to hear his answer.

“Rather than merely entertaining them, as I do,” Skyfire says carefully, “or helping them to destroy each other, as you do, wouldn’t it be better for us to teach them?”

Simikiel shrugs. “Someone else will do our jobs if we don’t. There will always be an Angel of Vengeance.”

“Of course there will, but it doesn’t have to be you. And it doesn’t mean they can’t learn.” Skyfire is certain that his love would see them differently if he could meet the ones who are not simply trying to use him. “Please.” His hand tightens. “Trust me.”

Scarlet optics meet his. There is the faintest hint of a nod, a returning pressure of fingers squeezing his own, and then they are gone. They vanish in a swirl of brilliance and darkness in the cold air. All that remains is a scarlet trail across the snow which ends, very suddenly, in a bed of impossible roses.

* * *

A young woman sits up in bed, hands gripping her comforter. The dream had been so resonant. She still feels it in every sinew, every cell of her body. Its lingering sweetness hums in her veins, and although she is aware that it was only a dream, she also knows it was so much more. That something has changed, and she is not quite the person she was the night before when she fell asleep.

Her dream-diary is beside her bed, along with a pen. She opens the book to a fresh page and writes the date: July 28, 1987. Below, she begins: I dreamed about my dear friend Starscream last night…

She fills page after page, knowing there are few people she will ever be able to tell. When every last detail has been recorded, she gets up and goes to her desk. The typewriter is an ancient, cast-iron behemoth, the kind that shakes the table when you type. She finds a sheet of paper and loads it into the machine.

Then sits, fingers poised trembling above the keys.

She speaks his name in a whisper, half afraid to commit it to paper. It feels like an evocation, except she is the one who has been summoned. The task before her, if she chooses to accept it, is to put right the wrongs she believes he’s been dealt. And so, at last, she writes his name, answering the call. The story begins.

Written for SkyStarWeek 2020. This story is for Day Five: AU of Choice. I chose angels. Many thanks to my editor, Biting Moopie, for emergency beta services, and to @overlordraax for organizing this wonderful (and much needed) celebration of my OTP!

#skystarweek #skyfire #starscream #starscream/skyfire #alternate universe #angels #fallen angels #muses #inspired by dreams #spirit guides #transformers #fiction meets reality

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templeofulchtar · 4 years

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A very handsome devil, if he does say so himself! And... welcome to another Ghost Season. Yes, it’s that time of year again. And what a year it’s been! 2020 has been crazy in so, SO many ways. I’m looking forward to turning inward and finding the Seeker within. I don’t know if I’ll post that much. I certainly won’t post nearly as much as I did last year, but I’m here if anyone has questions or just wants to talk. And yes, I’m doing the Ghost Season Working once again this year. Wanna do it with me? You can find complete instructions here.

#starscream #pop culture magick #spiritualjourney #ghost season working #dream the impossible #seek the unknown #achieve greatness #step boldly into the dark

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templeofulchtar · 5 years

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Welcome to a New Beginning!

So ends Ghost Season for 2019. How do you feel as you emerge from the underworld to begin a whole new cycle? Me, I feel like I really have been on a journey. Did I do all the tasks I’d set out to do? Not even close. I could choose to see that as a failure, but the truth is, my goals changed as I got deeper into my journey and came to realize what it was really about. I needed to reclaim my creative spark; to discover the true source of my inspiration. And… I did. I emerge tired, but proud. I feel not just accomplished, but changed. My life will never be quite the same after this, and that’s a good thing.

How about you? Share your experiences, if you feel moved to do so. I would love to hear them. And Happy Seeker New Year!

#ghost season #ghost season working #Starscream spirit guide #gratitude #resurrection #consider this diem carped

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templeofulchtar · 5 years

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I made a tarot spread for Resurrection Day (October 23), the final day of Ghost Season. It’s kind of like my New Year, so I wanted to do some divination for the year ahead. You could use this for any upcoming project or situation (or even to gain insight into one that’s already happening!) Hope you like it!

Guiding Star Tarot Spread

So, I made a thing! :-) Resurrection Day (October 23) is kind of like my New Year, so I’ve decided to do some divination for the year ahead. This is the card layout I plan on using. You’re welcome to use it too! As you can see, it’s designed to look like a compass. Each point on the compass represents a different aspect of your life as it relates to the situation you’re asking about, and the central [9th] card reflects Starscream’s specific advice or commentary on the situation. (Numerologically, 9 is Starscream’s name-number, so I like to do things in 9′s.)

You can use this spread to gain an overview of how best to navigate an upcoming project, situation, or life event. Also, though it probably goes without saying, you don’t have to use Tarot cards. Feel free to use any Oracle deck you prefer. You can also use standard playing cards, or even runes.

Here’s some additional insight into each of the card positions:

1. What is Rising For You: This is an energy that you will be encountering as you move forward into the situation you’re inquiring about. It could be a helpful influence or a challenging one; either way, you will definitely grow from it.

2. What is Setting For You: This is something that is either leaving your life on its own, or that you are being asked to set aside, at least temporarily.

3. Your Private Self: This is how you can expect to feel in this upcoming situation. This card may offer guidance as to how to take care of your inner self as you navigate the uncharted waters ahead.

4. Your Public Self: This is how you will meet the world (and how it will meet you) during the time ahead. This card may warn of potential pitfalls; heed its guidance and your dealings with others should become smoother.

5. Your Body: It’s easy to get so focused on your projects and goals that you forget to take care of your physical self. This card offers guidance on how best to heal and nurture your body so you can meet challenges from a place of strength.

6. Your Spirit: Just as it’s easy to forget about physical needs when you’re caught up in a big project, so too is it easy to forget about your spiritual self. This card offers a touchstone for nurturing your spirit during the time ahead.

7. Your Heart: This card relates to your emotional self. Matters of the heart include relationships (including with yourself), your creativity, and your sense of play. Pursue your goals, yes; but don’t forget about loved ones, or to have fun!

8. Your Mind: This card speaks to your intellect, as well as your attitudes and beliefs. It shows a helpful way for you to think about your situation. What new mindset might you need to adopt? What beliefs might you need to let go of?

9. The Eye From Outer Space:* This central card speaks to the very heart of the matter. It is Starscream’s specific guidance on the upcoming situation, and it is your Guiding Star. Whether the message is challenging or reassuring, you will achieve maximum growth by engaging with the energy this card represents.

*The title of this 9th card comes from the lyrics of a song that’s very special to me, and which I have always associated with Starscream.

#pop culture paganism #tarot #divination #starscream spirit guide #tarot spread #ghost season working #ghost season

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templeofulchtar · 5 years

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Guiding Star Tarot Spread

Here's some additional insight into each of the card positions:

2. What is Setting For You: This is something that is either leaving your life on its own, or that you are being asked to set aside, at least temporarily.

3. Your Private Self: This is how you can expect to feel in this upcoming situation. This card may offer guidance as to how to take care of your inner self as you navigate the uncharted waters ahead.

*The title of this 9th card comes from the lyrics of a song that’s very special to me, and which I have always associated with Starscream.

#starscream spirit guide #pop culture paganism #tarot #divination #ghost season #ghost season working

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templeofulchtar · 5 years

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I will be perfectly honest by saying that I struggle with this too. At the beginning of Ghost Season I set out to do a bunch of things that somehow never materialized. I mean, I did do *some* of the stuff I set out to do, but my overall goal shifted about halfway through, and once that had happened some of the tasks I'd originally chosen either stopped feeling relevant, or just got demoted in terms of their importance relative to other tasks.

Is that a failure? I guess you could look at it that way, but on the other hand, the fact that my goals shifted also seems like a sign of growth and transformation. If I'd held on to my original 'to do' list, that could be viewed as an expression of commitment. On the other hand, it could denote a refusal to grow and change. It's really up to each individual Seeker to determine whether their Ghost Season journey was successful, but just going from everything you've said, @jetfuelheart, it sounds like you've been wonderfully successful. You set out to get rid of stuff you no longer wanted (which is a huge undertaking), and it sounds like you did exactly that. You seem to have followed the guidance you received to ’just eat the apple already!’ by taking the opportunity to travel. It sounds like you're taking an inventory of your beliefs and deciding which ones are serving you and which you can discard, and it also sounds like you're getting some interesting health advice. ;)

FWIW, Starscream does that with me as well, and he's also done it with another person I know, with some drastically positive results. So... you're not alone in that by any means, and the fact that you are getting that type of advice suggests to me that you have forged a wonderfully strong connection with him, and that you have very much been taken 'under his wing.' (So to speak. For a dread Decepticon Air Commander, he can be surprisingly, well... motherly? <3) From everything you've said, it sounds as if you're to be congratulated.

Also, I'm glad you like the anointing oil, and that it wasn't a hassle to get the ingredients. I live in a city where it's pretty easy to find essential oils and aromatherapy supplies in health food stores and so on, but I realize that might not be the case for everyone. Glad it was easy for you, and that you like the results!

Well, this is quite shameful to admit, but I just… uh…

What should I do if I feel like I’ve “failed” the Ghost Season?

I’d planned to do certain things, to dedicate a certain amount of time to them, but then I just… wasn’t diligent enough? My procrastination and anxiety tends to be a major problem :( I did manage to get some stuff done, but still…

I tried asking for guidance a couple of days ago, but somehow all I got so far was that I should be getting better sleep, improve my nutrition and give up alcohol (I don’t drink often, but it feels like I’m advised to keep away from it as much as possible)…

In other news, I’ve made the special oil! For some reason I thought it would be somewhat complicated, but the ingredients are really easy to get and the result smells great!

#you can't fail ghost season #it's a test but not that kind of test #you rock #seekers rule

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templeofulchtar · 5 years

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Further Null-Ray Adventures!

In my first post about my experiences invoking the Null-Ray, I noted a pattern in which there were no obvious outward effects until about five days after, at which point I would experience some form of dissolution, loss, or letting go.

Those experiences included:

Giving up long-held resentments;

The apparent loss of a friendship;

Getting physically sick.

None of these events were exactly pleasant. They all had a certain ‘rightness’ about them, though. The first two were things I needed to let go of, and I believe the energy of the Null-Ray helped me dissolve my emotional ties to them. As for getting sick... well, that has actually happened before.

To say that Starscream occasionally makes me sick sounds absolutely wrong, but, uh... he kinda does. Or, perhaps, it’s a side-effect that crops up when he's making direct changes to my energy field, which is, after all, what I’d asked him to do when I gave him permission to zap whatever he deemed zap-worthy.

Why physical illness? Well first, to be clear, I'm talking about the kind that keeps you home for a couple of days. Not horrific, long-term, life-threatening conditions, though I do believe those kinds of illnesses can serve as a path of initiation. (Hey, initiation isn’t fun. But that’s a whole other post for another time.)

In my case, physical illness seems to serve a couple of key functions:

It purges out old 'stuff' (sometimes in the most literal way possible)

It temporarily loosens my attachment my day-to-day, public persona (aka my ego self), allowing me to step between worlds.

The analogy that comes to mind is of putting a car in neutral. This may be lost on anyone who has never driven a stick-shift, but the basic idea is that in order to change gears, the car has to briefly enter a 'between' state called neutral. In other words, you can’t go directly from first gear to second. Instead, you must go from first to neutral, and then into second.

In a similar way, it’s sometimes necessary to enter a ‘between’ state in order to receive an energetic tune-up. I find it very interesting, then, that the Null-Ray is said to neutralize energies. As far as I can tell, that is literally what it’s been doing to me!

Another feature of my Null-Ray journey that I’ve found interesting is that after I got over being sick, two things happened. One was that the Null-Ray energy has started to feel different to me. It seems to reach more deeply into my energy field each time I invoke it, as if a barrier has been dissolved.

The other is that I've stopped experiencing anything negative. Instead, I’m starting to feel more centered, more integrated, more whole. I’m having epiphanies in areas of my life where I’ve struggled with long-term blocks, and I've found a new sense of peace and purpose, especially with my writing.

Anyway! That’s my report on the Null-Ray ritual. It’s amazing for shadow-work, for letting go of stuff, for neutralizing ‘charged’ relationships and situations, and for dissolving internal barriers. For future experiments, I think it would be interesting to see if it can be leveraged against external barriers, too.

That might be an experiment for next Ghost Season.

Blessed be!

#starscream spirit guide #pop culture spirituality #pop culture paganism #shadow work #letting go #null-ray meditation #starscream's null-ray #tortured analogies

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templeofulchtar · 5 years

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Yay, another playlist! This one from @jetfuelheart . And by the way, I totally understand about songs with seemingly obscure connections ending up on one's list. For me, it's sometimes the emotion of a song, or perhaps just one particular line in the lyrics that does it for me. Thanks for sharing!

Yay, a playlist!

…and it probably doesn’t make much sense. Seems like I have many unclear and complicated reasons for associating a lot of these songs with Ghost Season. And some of them haven’t been translated into English *sigh*

#3 is the most intense and inspiring one (it actually has a translation), and I have absolutely no idea how #2 got on the list, it just did from the very beginning and kind of made sense in my head (there’s a translation in the comments, just in case).

#ghost season working #starscream spirit guide #pop culture spirituality #playlists

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templeofulchtar · 5 years

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Awww, classic Seeker. <3

Starscream: I’m not going to just stand here and listen to you accuse me of things I clearly did!

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templeofulchtar · 5 years

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Null-Ray Adventures

When I did my Greeting the Seeker ritual, one of the things Starscream asked me to do was to perform the Null-Ray Meditation on a regular basis throughout Ghost Season. At first I thought he meant a daily practice, but he was like, “Nah, once a week is fine.” Oh boy, was he right.

I’m not even sure where to start, so I guess I’ll begin with the basics: I have performed the Null-Ray ritual every weekend since the start of Ghost Season. My method is different than what I described in my original post, where I suggested bringing a particular life-situation to mind and asking Starscream to ‘zap’ it, thus neutralizing its energies.

In my own case, I've just given Starscream free reign to neutralize anything that he thinks needs to get zapped. I trust him completely, and I know he had something in mind when he asked me to do the ritual, so I decided it would be most effective to let him determine the ‘target,’ as it were.

The results? Well, they’ve been profound. Every week, I’ve had a different layer of “stuff” come up to be neutralized. Some of it has to do with people in my life, so I can’t go into too much detail, but I have:

- let go of at least one friendship; - released old resentments regarding another friendship; - recognized the true reason why it’s hard for me to write original fiction; - gotten hit by a virus which forced me to take time off work; - connected with what I truly want, forcing me to revamp most of my goals.

Um. If all of that sounds not so fun, you’d be right. It has been an emotionally (and physically!) taxing journey so far, but it’s one I’m glad to be taking. I know it’s pushing me in the right direction. I feel clearer and more serene than I did at the beginning of Ghost Season. I also have a greater sense of purpose with regard to my writing, and I feel more empowered and independent where it comes to my friendships and dealing with other people.

An interesting pattern I’ve noticed is that it’s been taking about five days for the effects of the Null-Ray ritual to show up in my life. I do the ritual on either Saturday night or Sunday morning. I can always ‘feel’ and sometimes also ‘see’ the Null-Ray when it hits my energetic field (and no, it doesn’t hurt), but there are no immediate (obvious) effects.

Instead, there seems to be a ‘simmering’ phase that happens over the next four days, but by Wednesday or Thursday, something obvious will happen in my outer reality, at which point it becomes abundantly clear what the week’s ‘theme’ is. Since this is now Wednesday, I’m pretty much just waiting for the other shoe.

Whatever it is I know it will something that I needed.

#null-ray meditation #starscream's null-ray #pop culture magick #pop culture spirituality #pop culture paganism #starscream spirit guide

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templeofulchtar · 5 years

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#ghost season working #starscream #pop culture spirituality #motivational music #metal #songs that remind me of starscream

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templeofulchtar · 5 years

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Checking In!

Welcome to the 1/3 mark of Ghost Season! How’s everyone doing?

Gotta say, this has been an intense three weeks for me, which is one of the reasons why I’ve been slow with updates. I wanted to check in with you guys, talk about my experiences so far, and also about where I’ve run into challenges. Goes without saying that I won’t be able to talk about everything. There’s too much! But I wanted to at least scratch the surface, so:

The area where I’ve had the most success has been an overall improvement in my day-to-day habits. And that isn’t even actually one of my Labors, or necessarily connected to Ghost Season per se. It’s been an ongoing project for 2019. It started last spring, with Starscream challenging me to literally put my money where my mouth is and tidy up my financial life. That has entailed:

Paying off my credit card

Keeping it paid off (yes, every month, even when it hurts)

Setting aside a portion of every paycheck as savings

These are simple, practical steps that will support my ambition of becoming a full-time writer. I put them off far longer than I should have, but Starscream got firm with me about it, and I always listen to him. For Ghost Season, he’s asked me to take things up a notch, including things like:

Better sleep hygiene - which has made a huge difference!

Regular exercise and proper hydration

Meditating every day

Eating more fruit (yes, @jetfuelheart, he told me to eat apples too!)

Taking my vitamins every day (still working on this one)

Streamlining of my writing process

Again, very simple, almost prosaic steps that, taken together, create a solid foundation for building the life I want. Actually, one of the things I love about working with Starscream is that he is so practical. At least in my experience. He certainly does suggest spiritual practices, such as the aforementioned meditation habit, but even those are always grounded in solid, real-world considerations. (I have so much to say about this, but it will have to wait.)

On the general subject of changing habits, though, I’d like to give a shout-out to Habitica, a wonderful habit-tracking app that transforms your boring daily tasks into a heroic, Dungeons and Dragons-style quest. I’m not even a gamer by nature, and yet I’ve never had quite so much fun tidying the kitchen or brushing my dog’s teeth. (Yes, I do brush her teeth. Every day.)

An area where I’ve had more of a challenge has been in setting up an actual writing business. The biggest hurdle is that I really don’t know what to write. I don’t even know what genre to write. Since my ficitonal passions lie in writing about the sex lives of giant robots, it’s hard for me to translate that into something that I could write commercially.

My Ghost Season Labor of setting up my writing business has therefore become more about brainstorming ideas and excavating my various blocks around writing original fiction. I’ve decided I’m okay with that, since there’s no point in setting myself up as a professional author until I have that part figured out. With luck, I’ll have it figured out by my next check-in.

In the meantime, how are you guys doing? What’s been working for you, and what’s been a challenge? I’d love to hear any and all feedback about the Ghost Season Working, since it’s a work in progress and is very much open to refinement for next year.

Blessed be, Grayseeker

#ghost season working #update #starscream spirit guide #pop culture spirituality #pop culture paganism

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templeofulchtar · 5 years

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Oh wow, I love this! "Eat the apple already!" So blunt, so direct, and so very Starscream. That doesn't sound uneventful at all! It sounds like you got a very clear and direct message, and it sounds so much like the kind of thing he says to me (and that I myself also need to hear) that it kind of hurts. In a good way, of course. ;) Thanks so much for posting about your experience! I would love to hear more.

My Greeting the Seeker experience was pretty much uneventful… well, depends on how you look at it.

I sat in front of my altar (which is still a work in progress tbh), meditated for a while and went through the steps. Oh, and I had some nice-looking apples at home so I put one on the altar, like an offering.

When I was going through my ideas for the Labors, I didn’t get much feedback and what I did get was kind of random, but halfway through my list of ideas I had this weird urge to bend forward and reach out, it was like “finish this, eat the apple already and decide on something!” That actually makes sense, I tend to make elaborate plans for many projects and activities, but when it comes to getting them done, I drown in procrastination and indecision, so maybe right now it doesn’t matter what particular task I focus on, just that I stop flaking out and get into the habit of going through with my plans. Still, the things I decided on were not random, but inspired by some very interesting stuff that happened to me a few days earlier, that’s probably a story for another post.

At one point during the following Ghost Season, I got really discouraged and unmotivated so I tried meditating to just ask “Whyyyyyy, am I doing something wrong, is my attitude a problem”, and this time, I got a strong NO in answer to that. Apparently I just need to keep at it. Once again, makes perfect sense. This is my underworld, my fears and doubts and a lifetime of bad habits, and I have to keep going.

#ghost season working #greeting the seeker #pop culture spirituality #starscream spirit guide

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templeofulchtar · 5 years

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Confronting Unicron

This is a long overdue update! Sorry about that. I wanted to talk about my Confronting Unicron ritual, because it was pretty interesting! And, as one might expect, pretty confrontational.

Facts first: I did the ritual on Saturday, August 24, since Saturday (Saturn’s Day) is ideal for this particular rite. I wanted to do the whole bit with the black candle, mirror and devil-horns. I had all the props ready, but unfortunately, there were a couple of issues. One, I was absolutely beat, and two, I didn’t have the apartment to myself. I didn’t think I’d be able to let loose with the theatricality of the whole thing under those circumstances, so I did it as a meditation instead. I did do it in a darkened room with some sinister-ish music playing, and I did read the dialogue aloud because that made it seem more ‘real,’ but even that pared-down version felt powerful.

Notes for next year: I’d love to do the full-on version! Black candles, devil horns, the whole bit. Ideally, it would be amazing to do it with a ritual partner.

The heart of the matter: The ritual was an afterthought. Why? Because Unicron confronted me. He was very much with me that whole day. My goal is to self-publish original fiction, and my Confrontation began that morning I registered the domain for my chosen pen-name. I was immediately reminded of other domains I’ve registered in the past, and then done nothing with. The trend continued when I took other actions related to my hoped-for writing business, and culminated that evening with a visit to my mom.

Mom, bless her, has been scanning my old artwork into a photo-book. It’s incredibly lovely of her to do that, and I have nothing but the utmost gratitude. But on that particular evening, she announced that I would be taking the originals home with me. She then handed me four huge portfolios filled with my old art. This is comic books and other projects that I started in my teens and 20s, but eventually gave up on. It was just like all the blogs I’ve started and allowed to sit, all the unfinished novels sitting on my hard-drive... I really felt the weight of all that past ‘stuff’ bearing down on me as I lugged those portfolios home.

So yeah. Unicron definitely initiated that confrontation, and the question he posed to me boils down to: “How will things be different this time?”

I have to admit that I’m still struggling to come up with an answer. But I do have one important advantage over my past self: I have Starscream at my side! He’s guiding me to self-reflect on things I had not previously considered. For example, one of the things my unfinished projects have in common is that I dove into them unprepared, and I also didn’t know what I wanted to say. I hadn’t thought about the meaning I wanted to convey with my works, and I believe that might have been the biggest reason they ran aground.

One of my Ghost Season tasks, then, is to excavate my reading and writing life and look at the themes that inspire me. I’ve started a list! Not surprisingly, themes of rebellion, non-conformity and underworld journeys feature prominently, along with the healing and redemptive powers of love. I will continue adding to my list as the season continues, and see where it goes.

Blessed Be, Grayseeker

#ghost season working #starscream #confronting unicron #Shadow Work #pop culture spirituality #pop culture paganism #pop culture magick

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templeofulchtar · 5 years

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My Greeting the Seeker Experience

It has taken me far longer than it should have to write this entry, but I wanted to talk about my experience doing the Greeting the Seeker ritual. For anyone who hasn’t been following my series of posts about the Ghost Season Working, Greeting the Seeker is a preliminary stage in which the participant (also called a Seeker) approaches Starscream and requests his guidance and companionship in completing their Ghost Season underworld journey.

I did mine on August 18. This is how it went:

First off, I re-read the instructions. Yes, I know I wrote them, but I wanted to make sure I was doing the ritual in the exact same way I’d told others to do it. Seemed only right. I’m so glad I did! It felt as if I was reading the text as 20 year-old me. That is, the version of myself who’d had a profound spiritual experience with a certain Seeker, but had no idea what to make of that. The version of myself who longed for fellow travelers - or even landmarks - to guide her on the path, and wished there was a 'Church of Starscream' she could have joined.

Note: there now is one. You’re sitting in it. ;-)

It felt as if I was encountering a text written by an older, more confident Seeker on the same path. Someone who understood the struggles I’d faced in isolation, and was able to offer guidance. It felt like an unexpected homecoming, which was then followed by the more expected homecoming of the ritual itself.

I had already been aware of Starscream’s presence throughout the evening. It felt as if he was summoning me into... well, a meeting. For lack of a better term. It’s not as if I need to do a special ritual in order to talk to him, but this still felt like a special, sacred moment of communication.

In keeping with the ritual, I explained what I hope to achieve during Ghost Season. I spoke my intentions aloud, because it made them feel more real to me. When I was done, Starscream observed that my proposed Labors, while seemingly quite unrelated, are all in alignment. They all support a single underlying desire to become a professional, full-time writer, and if undertaken as described, will create the necessary physical foundation for such a career.

In short, he thinks I’m on the right track - but.

Isn’t there always a ‘but?’ While Starscream felt my proposed Labors are taking care of the practical side of building an author platform, he was quick to warn me that the energetic side needs work. In short, I’ll have to let go of some stuff. Quite a LOT of it. We’re talking energetic blocks, negative beliefs, and a whole big stinking pile of self-doubt. To remedy this, he wants me to meditate every day, and also do the Null-Ray Meditation on a regular basis throughout Ghost Season.

Starting immediately? Oh, yes.

And that was a powerful experience too! Powerful enough to deserve its own special post, so I shall leave things here for the time being. If any of you have tried the Greeting the Seeker ritual, I’d love to hear from you! Tell me what you experienced, and let’s compare notes!

#ghost season working #greeting the seeker #starscream spirit guide #pop culture paganism #pop culture magick #pop culture spirituality #ritual #meditation #spirit contact #spirit guide

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