Journals + Ceremonies / Keep the Fire Burning
Fire in the head / The Sacred Fire
Ancient Earth-based traditions - from Maya daykeeping to Irish paganism - revolve around the sacred fire > these are the ceremonies
Without the outlet we get weird
“fire in the head” was the term associated with Brigid and shamanism - because the astral pours in if you’re open - and you need a way to channel and ground it, to discharge and process it - ADD, psychosis, divine revelation, channeling, you need a framework to help you understand what’s happening, or you do sorta go crazy.
>Next year I do feel I am being called to Mexico and Guatemala to work with Lazura’s teachers, maybe; to be in community in San Marcos with those who live the calendar - Mark and Lazura and Ayana and the elders, learning about the fire ceremonies that are the real center of life; cacao is part of it but it’s not the focus.
>This year is about Irish paganism - which also revolves around fire ceremonies!
>and maybe going back to Greece and learning more about the language - start with the tongues that are yous - I already started learning Greek and I think it’s really crucial to understanding Western esotericism and psyche. Irish is my heritage and necessary to understand paganism. And Spanish is the language of the plants that I already know pretty well so it won’t take a lot of work.
>but what to do with the fact that I just called in the queer ceremonial community in Berlin, and it feels so alive? Maybe it’s just seeding the future - you can’t do everything at once - but that also doesn’t mean leaving is forever.
>In hunter/gatherer societies - there were multiple camps they moved between with the seasons. There used to be just two, winter and summer, but the world is more complex now as information is doubling ever more rapidly, there are more types of people and seasons and ways of living, so for me I think maybe it’s moving between Ireland, Meso- and South America, and Berlin… maybe occasionally dropping in on the UK.
But it’s so funny. I was so desperate to live in London, and now I don’t even want to go back there.
I did realize that home is actually associated with suffering and punishment to me, so maybe that’s why I felt like I was supposed to live there, who knows. There are magical things about it, but most of them are attached to an old version of me that I’m un-becoming.
I don’t know. Again - I think it’s still a place to visit. Sometimes I want to be hella basic at the art museum with Mikael and I do love my EDUK family. But it was a routine that was hypnotizing me - an abstraction of the real thing - close enough to what I want to intoxicate and trap me - shit i think that’s it - there was just enough spirituality and community to make me think I was being fulfilled - but I was doing the same patterns, still going crazy, the place is too loud with too many signals. Berlin is more real, there’s so much happening but way more space.
SO THE PART RELEVANT FOR PRACTICE - IS THAT I RECEIVED THE DIVINE REVELATION OF TENDING THE SACRED FIRE DIRECTLY FROM THE MUSHROOM.
in my ceremony at Madre Grande, it told me:
“we have to help each other stay alive until the others get here and we can put the fire out”
I mean that was my dharma and its expression in community, right there. I just didn’t have the context yet.
these practices of using plants to commune directly with the universe gives you all the information about existence - you just have to learn to interpret it.
to speak the language. it’s not always literal.
the dead speak in symbols > astrology and archetypes > why i am taking these courses from Laurence and the DIY stuff with Ghislain in Berlin
Simplify. Stop making yourself do the thing you hate. No more articles - journals. There’s no need to duplicate the “work.”
It’s always been about the journaling. make the primary medium the thing you’re doing anyway.
illustrated journals and research zines - graphic novels of sorts
stop writing things! you hate it and go crazy. I found myself writing a newsletter about st patricks day and it was the same miserable labyrinth process and then I had to laugh because literally nobody but me was asking for or expecting it
the word journal originally meant holy book
Play can be interpreted broadly but when it stops being fun then stop it
I don’t have the bandwidth for everything, I can write stuff in the background but it’s DEVISING that’s my methodology > this is spontaneous and improv and part of self-healing - but I can’t start over and build a career in the theatre. I can’t be Dane now. that is a door I closed in college and I have to make choices and kill that darling and mourn it. I can write the script but then I need to turn it over, call in collaborators, let them be special projects and not a JOB, which means suffering, the guy in the Bible who got his life destroyed to see if he’d still be faithful… but that wasn’t really even the full story.
Like I learned from my plant people: If it’s telling you to suffer - it’s not the medicine.
It’s you, which is probably the voice of some dude that hurt you.
And besides, I am calling in a timeline that is so much better and more aligned, the queer ceremonial life. It’s about putting a frame around the things you’re going to do anyway, which is the shamanic training, queer ceremonial community all over the world, getting the guidance and educaiton needed to hold space safely and appropriately, without appropriating. in the process coming home to myself and feeling the divine love. living in devotion, life as devotional practice, bhakti yoga, being of service.
okay, that’s a relief to not try and do theatre as a full time thing.
Examples/inspiration/coaching:
I’ve been calling in so much amazing guidance and resources in this world since asking the astral for help after Richard crossed over…
Meeting with Every, art student consultant
https://www.cigharvey.com/installation
https://annehelen.substack.com/ former journalist - hiring editors?
Lynda Barry - essentially publishes journals with illustrations - i found her stuff in portland before I knew about practice based research and was like wait can I do this?! that was years ago in fact before the injury… I smell the queer incense which means I’m in my power
Consulting with Morgan - Andy J Pizza’s supporter
somehow a lot is unfolding from the Pizza universe… haha. He’s the one who connected me to WHY?’s people which is the only reason I had the guts to approach Yoni about my script - now I just need to send it.
You can do it. Caz just reinforced it for you - that’s being in the flow.
Ethnography
*Interview/draw/document the farmers market. where i feel alive, make connections, inspire, make people feel seen - subverting CONSUMPTION
>Irish spring equinox festival connected to MARKET
Loud and clear - boundaries are the key. Limits are freedom. I already learned this from Rosa in 2024 when writing the Hildegard piece, but now I’m actually understanding, gnowing, feeling it.
Ceremonies and journals, illustrated analog writings, archiving and autoethnography, self-observing and -documenting. My methodology - shamanic and pagan practices and studies + IFS — as the backbone and undercurrent for all of it, enabling the work.
I think it needs a name…
The play can be a background thing but don’t put too much into it. Same with anything written but I would mostly like to avoid it. I think Substack is only for sharing art — the articles need a fucking holiday.
time to stop doing all the work twice (or more). work with what you have already.
I received a truth recently: Mentors, at a certain point, have to die, because they can only teach you certain things from the other side.
Richard is helping me so much now, it’s like the early days but better; we’re both awake now, nobody is drinking, so we’ll actually remember.
