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e x e r c i s e s a n d m e d i t a t i o n s
faerie fire exercises, breathing, the "dragon aura" thing from Book of Dragon, glamour, glamours of attraction and repulsion (notice and invisibility) a la Faery Wicca p. 185
synchronizing heartbeats - the ecstatic state - also breathing together, as Sister Light Sister Dark
Tree meditation - sitting with one's back against a tree and over a series of breaths, sinking into the tree until one is at the center, and experiencing being a tree.
exercises of contemplation and study about basic cosmological concepts, such as the three worlds (bright, middle and shadow), three realms (land, sea and sky), and three levels (physical, emotional-mental, spiritual), that really dig in to what they mean and imply in "Real Life", beyond just a concept. The following passage from Glamoury illustrates:
Meditating over [the concept of three levels] will bring up apparent anomalies which may at first cause you to doubt the validity of this basic idea. For example, if everything has a mental and spiritual aspect, as well as the more evident physical aspect, then rocks, trees, plants, and old bits of dirty and useless rubbish must likewise have mental and spiritual aspects to them. Can this be so? … Likewise, if everything has a physical and spiritual manifestation, then our very thoughts and emotions must share these two other aspects as well. Where are they? Why can I not touch them, if they are physical? … Look at yourself and your life, and try to see the three levels in operation. … Can you identify how, where and when the three levels work in conjunction and harmony? … Next, consider your friends and family, and how you relate to them on the three levels. Look at the Green World with all its different life forms, and see the three levels manifesting in the ways plants and animals behave and interact. When you start to get a grasp of this vital concept, turn to the Irish legends, and look for the ways the three levels are written into these apparently simply and straightforward tales of battles and heroic deeds. … If you consider that everything is right here and now, including the whole of the future, then the moment of your death must be right here and now. Why are you not dead? If you are working to become proficient in magic, why are you not an expert already?
An exercise to "forget time": turn off clocks, radio, TV etc and go about the day. The longer (more days) you can keep this up, the better. Eventually you will cease to worry about time. "Outside time there is no sense of leaving or returning: you are simply suspended in the cauldron of remembrance and forgetting until you wish to return."
Importance of purification practices… "if you are not fit, neither will the spell be." There are no moral implications in this "uncleanliness", just as there's nothing "wrong" about dishes needing washing after use, or having to clean out your hairbrush. Think of it as keeping things oiled and clean in good working order rather than allowing them to rust. A channel which flows stays clean; purification is keeping the channel flowing with clear water. The exercise which opens the chakras of the rainbow serpent (mudras) and then the Well, Tree and Crown (with the other hand gestures I thought of). Running the energy.
With Rising Light Below and its functional complement from Above, the actual point is the intaking of the energies. Therefore we needn't have "Descending Dark Above" so as not to exclude the dark. The darkness and light of that realm are both apparent, and the use of "light" is mainly to get a handle on the movement of the energy. In the case of Below, however, thinking of it specifically as light is an important concept, because it relates to the Light/Stars within the Earth, rather than thinking of the Underworld as all dark. Thus - first one awakens/prays for purity of the Well, the Tree, and the Stars. Then Breathing Greenfire, which is Land/Underworld oriented and thus, serves for Rising Light Below. Then Drinking the Night, which may serve for the Above connection. Then the Silver Serpent climbs the Rainbow… something. ooh… rainbow bridge? a parallel between those centers, and the otherworldly bridge? anyway… Thus I am accomplishing the same basic movements in my own fashion. There's also a sort of fractaling-in-on-itself phenomenon here, since there's three, yet the first one (with its connections to Waters/Well, Land/Tree and Sky/Stars) mirrors the whole thing, since the Awakening is attention to Body, and Breathing is Breath (durr-hay), and Drinking is analogous to Blood.
After the rising of the Serpent would be the time to do the Four Celestial Bodies affirmation-of-connection, godform assumptions or similar further work. All of that together is a basic purifying/alignment sequence.