Noon adoration in the stairwell
Four adorations of the sun a day: dawn, noon, sunset, midnight. Dawn and midnight are easy, I'm home. Noon is the problem. I work in an open-plan office.
My solution for two years has been the fire stairs between floors 6 and 7. Face south, make the sign, say the words under my breath, note it in the diary at lunch. Last Tuesday a colleague came down mid-adoration and I froze with my arms at an odd angle. She said 'stretching? Same, my back is wrecked' and kept walking.
People imagine ceremonial magic as robes and incense. Most days it's a stairwell, a quiet voice, and the small stubbornness of showing up when the sun reaches the top of the sky.
The robe stays in the closet
Year one of ceremonial magic, I spent $240 on a black robe with gold trim, a hand-painted lamen and a wand I'm still embarrassed about. Five years later the robe has been worn exactly four times. The daily work happens in sweatpants at 6:10am, between the alarm and the kettle.
I don't regret the robe. It was a promise to myself that I was taking this seriously. But the promise that actually held was smaller and duller: banish every morning, write it down every night, even when nothing happens. Especially when nothing happens.
If you're new and tempted by the beautiful gear, buy a cheap notebook first. If you're still filling it in a year, you've earned the robe.
Sit still. Write down every twitch.
Working through the asana exercise in Liber E this month. The instruction is simple to the point of insult: choose a posture, hold it, and record in your diary every time you move.
Week one: 3 minutes 40 seconds before my left eyebrow made an independent decision. Week three: 11 minutes, interrupted by the neighbour's leaf blower and my own impatience, in that order.
What nobody tells you is how revealing the diary becomes. Every twitch has a thought attached to it, and most of mine, it turns out, are about whether I'm doing it right. Discipline, not costume. The robe stays in the closet for this one.