Many forms of ceremonial magic can be a place to draw upon for inspiration or pathworking in Sacred Kink. Human altars that appear in the Black Mass of LeVayan Satanism can incorporate objectification into ritual work. Dramatic body poses and wardrobe within the Ordo Templi Orientalis (O.T.O.) can be a very hot way to add theatre to your sex magic. Wiccan athame and chalice work can be erotically charged by adding knife or food play into the mix (or—gasp!—bringing the sex back into the great rite).
Embracing Chaos
The eight parts of becoming a Magus are not the only form of magic that pulls upon an eight-fold system in ritual work. Another fascinating system is the Eight Magics within Chaos Magic. Within Pete J. Carroll’s work Rituals and Spell Objectives and Design in Eight Magics, he spells them out by color, significance, and planetary attribution:
Octarine
Pure Magic. Uranus. The color Octarine is used to describe whatever the magician perceives their personal view of magic to be. This category includes such work as magical training programs, devising systems for divination, magical languages and spells, and creating philosophies and magical theories. It is also used to create primary means with which to interact with the universe at large. God forms and deities often associated with Octarine magic include Babylon, Baphomet, Eris, Hekate, Ishtar Lilith, Loki, Odin, Pan, Ptah, and Tiamat. The Octarine journey is one of self-discovery, personal power, awakening, inner journey, and truth in self.
Black
Death Magic. Saturn. The color Black is used to examine and find the power of the mysteries of aging, morbidity, necrosis, entropy and decay. Magicians engage in “Chod” rites as a rehearsal for death, invoking the wisdom and knowledge found there, and in turn are able to use it to cast destruction spells (surgically cold, not looking for a fight but for an effective end) and avoid premature death. God forms and deities include the skeletal figure of death in a robe, but also include Anubis, Atropos, Charon, Chronos, Hekate the Hag, Kali, Thanatos, and Yama. Black magic in this system also include death by natural causes and “black” humor.
Blue
Wealth Magic. Jupiter. The color Blue is used to affect our interaction with wealth, our control over people and material, as well as how we feel about our experiences around such concepts of economics and well-being. Money is a spiritual force of its own, intangible and invisible, and coins and numbers are only talismanic representations of these ideas. We use Blue magic to banish our demons over negativity with wealth, divine our deepest desires, and invoke new projects for success into our life. God forms and deities include Croesus, Midas, and Zeus. By coming to understand that we need not be desperate, suffering, undeserving or obsessed with object possession, blue magic taps into finding our true personal desires and having them manifest with clarity.
Green
Love Magic. Venus. More than just about connecting to a mate, Green magic is also about making other people friendly to you, loyalty, affection, and self-love. Working with this sort of magic involves behavioral matching, empathy, learning to understand yourself and others, reducing prejudice, affecting social status, and finding new people with which to connect as well as maintaining current relationships. God forms and deities include Aphrodite, Narcissus, and all other love spirits from any faith. All green power invocations must begin from a place of self-love, for to be able to attract affection and lovability we must find ourselves to be worthy of such things.
Yellow
Ego Magic. Sun. There are four aspects of Solar energy – Self-Image (personality and behavior patterns combined with perceptions of such), Charisma (self-confidence projected to others), Laughter/Creativity (the ability to connect disparate ideas into a single flow), and Assertion of Dominance (understanding and affecting social order). This mix varies from person to person, and Carroll’s thoughts on dominance and submission are an interesting read for those in our community engaging in such things. Yellow magic is used to affect the interplay between testosterone levels, social status/success, sexual urges, self-image and the magical interplay between male and female energies within each of us, through our ego and controlling it, since the very recognition of the ego provides the opportunity to change it. God forms and deities include Apollo, Baldur, Helios and Ra. Further work with yellow magic includes rewriting the meaning of one’s past, redefining what our history means to our future, and changing how we present ourselves to the world energetically through dress, tone of speech, and body language.
Orange
Thinking Magic. Mercury. Orange magic comes from affecting how one lives by wit, quickness of thought, and learning to paralyze the inhibiting process (allowing the subconscious to throw out fast responses). It affects work of doctors, magicians and shamans (all working through the placebo affect), gamblers, thieves, salesmen, stockbrokers, or any profession with a high heart attack rate or using quick action and thinking. God forms and deities include Coyote the Trickster, Hermes, Loki, and the Roman Mercurius. Addiction to anxiety is the shadow side of this working, and to be watched for.
Red
War Magic. Mars. Red magic is used for all energetic work involving vitality, morale to sustain a conflict (in life or war), and aggression. It is also used for all forms of combat magic, intimidation, control, and need to neutralize an adversary in a public manner. God forms and deities include Ares, Horus, Ishtar, Mithras, Ogun and Thor. Magic affecting the use of all weaponry or martial arts (ancient or modern) is also red magic.
Purple or Silver
Sex Magic. Moon. By using the emotional turmoil we feel around our sexual desires, Purple/Silver magic evokes power through ecstasy, fear, anger, love, boredom, delight, jealousy, self-pity, and confusion we experience. Orgasm magic (holding a thought/feeling/working at orgasm to have it reach the subconscious), prolonged sexual activities leading to trance, oracular and divinatory work through sex, and orgasms as holy offerings are part of this work. Attracting lovers is also part of Purple/Silver magic, by learning how to become more attractive to ourselves and to other people on both a core and a surface level, not by casting simple love spells.
Peter Carroll’s choices for deity and other associations is an interesting one. There are many lunar deities that would work within his system for “Purple or Silver,” Selene or Aranrhod for example, and yet he lists none. Lakshimi is a strong association for the concepts under “Blue,” and yet instead he speaks of mythological non-deity figures such as Midas, whose story is not normally associated with positive wealth. No matter what our thoughts are on the details of Carroll’s system, it is a useful one to consider for breaking down ritual concepts. Perhaps you have your own way of breaking down the rituals of your life?
Strengthening the Bonds of Service
Each morning I send her the picture of what I wore along with my journal entries from the night before, and each night she sends me a picture of a tool or a tarot card or some other thing from her life and what she wants me to know about it. In the story, she always shares thoughts of her day, and my place in it.
When we do fight, she has developed a ritual where I must come to her in the flesh, and speak from an open heart in her temple space. No anger, no release from my true space, just eyes locked to eyes. Truth pours out. She shares why she is angry. I speak of why I feel betrayed. She sighs at my misunderstanding. I laugh at her insights. We eventually find peace again, and daily rites resume.
The first time I put on her collar, for she always has me place in on myself, I thought it such a simple act. Each time, each day I do it, I gain a new level of understanding. Not only of what this collar means between us, but what I mean to myself. Who I am in this world. Who I am called to be in this world.
Sometimes in locking it on in the morning, I allow myself to journey off into a land of fantasy. Other times I wish for my dreams. But today I look in the mirror and realize that every day I am becoming more of myself. Becoming something more to offer. That I am no longer the meek creature she met, but the strong man and beast an
d servant she deserves. That I deserve to be.
I will carry this knowledge throughout the day as I tackle each challenge at the office. That I am charged by this ritual. That I can do anything that the world throws at me. Because this morning I came in her honor.
Chapter 7
The Path of Breath
Breathing In Our Potential
I had been sitting in prayer for some time, legs folded beneath me upon a padded cushion. Slow breaths filled me up, and with each slow breath I let out a desire to the universe. Though my mind wandered from time to time, my Guru had been clear. Set your will, set your intention, set your breath and I will return.
“Hold.” Zir voice, hard yet with a sensual undertone echoed across the space. I had not even heard them re-enter. I held my breath, lungs full of potential. Moments moved by into seconds, and seconds suddenly felt like minutes and I stared into the open space and the statuary before me. Focus, focus…but I felt myself squirm. “Release.”
I breathed out, lungs and mind grateful for the pressure being gone, until a moment later zir voice called “hold” again. Empty. So empty. My chest burned, struggling with the knowing that I could breathe if I chose. But without zir guidance, it would be a cheat. My throat buckled and tensed, I sucked in my empty cheeks. Finally, ze spoke once more, “breathe in.”
My breathing returned to normal, slowly, the adrenaline fading with each passing minute. Somewhere behind me ze stood, and my eyes stayed locked forward, until I felt zir body pressed up against my back. Ze was breathing in time with me. My in was their in, my out was their out. I kept breathing, but faltered for a moment when zir breathing stopped. No, they had not ordered me to hold. I kept breathing as ze lifted themself away from my back and moved between me and the icon against the wall.
Eyes locked. Ze still isn’t breathing. Finally, as I breathe out, I see them breathe in three feet away. Step by step ze inches forward, eyes still locked with mine. As I breathe in, ze breathes out. A foot away I feel zir heat on my neck, my face, my body flush with zir so close to me. Ze crouches down over me, and lower themself down onto me.
Gods, the heat of zir loins is intense. I keep breathing though, zir face still just a foot away. Eyes still locked. Lips lower as I breathe out, zir mouth open. Lips touch, and I breathe in, nervous, unsteady. Lips wet and mingle as ze sucks in my air between tender lips. Lips tremble as I breathe zir energy into me, breathe in my desire, breathe in my potential.
The Path of Breath
The Path of Breath is the pumping breath of heightened tension of pleasure, the slow release of our pain, the steady in and out in the silence of being with ourselves. Known in some traditions as the Path of Meditation, this path incorporates all work with breath, breathing techniques, speed or stillness with one’s breath. Breath is a powerful tool for increasing and decreasing heart rate, blood pressure, ramping up or cooling down energy, building connection, and creating trance states. It can be used to center, ground, meditate, and adjust to how one is “tuning in” to life and the universe.
Our respiratory system is both voluntary and involuntary. In a healthy individual, the body keeps breathing, bringing oxygen in to fuel the cells and removing carbon dioxide, whether we think about it or not. But unlike other automatic systems, we also have the power to control our breath. We can choose to stop and take in a long slow breath to control our temper. We have the ability to speed up our breathing to increase the potency and speed of our orgasms. Or we can just let our body do its thing.
This is why breath has become so often associated with energy worldwide. Not only is breath literally life—for without oxygen coming into our bodies we will die—it is also a visceral representation of the stuff that powers our life. Chi, prana, raw form of being, life force, vibration, exertion, power, presence, juice. Whatever we call it, it is both voluntary and involuntary. We can live our lives, do our work, keep us sustained and maintained, just as the oxygen will provide to our cells in each automatic breath. But we also have the power to choose to add energy to our life, funnel our energy into something greater, and create something more with our lives by focusing our life force in the ways we choose, rather than just letting it go where our automatic systems send it.
For these reasons I would argue that for most of us, the Path of Breath has tools that are the most “usable” for everyone. Everyone can use breath, or the metaphor for breath, on some level. But it is one of the more challenging paths to follow. Breathwork is part of every other path as well, just as energy is part of everything we do in this life. Consciousness and control of breath in the short term is hugely useful and can create amazing results, but applying it in every moment of one’s life is the enduring journey for those who walk this path.
Traditional Tools
In both secular and spiritual circles, every tradition across the globe has some form of wisdom, information or power made available through using breath. From sports psychology to Christian prayer, speeding up, slowing down, or becoming aware of our breath is called upon. These are but a small fraction of the concepts concerning breath.
Meditation
There are many systems of meditation, but the most common involve concentrating on a sound, sensation, thought or object to block out all else. In stilling the active mind, the chattering monkey mind, there is space for the mind to find profound insight or other effects of an altered state. Breath is one of the most common focuses within meditation. Many of us have heard the words “breathe in, focus on your breath, and breathe out” when learning basic meditative practices.
“Enlightenment is an accident,
but practice makes us accident prone.”
- Zen Roshi Richard Baker
Walking Meditation
This alternative form of meditation is done by allowing the body to be engaged in other activities and enter a trance state during them, instead of trying to sit or stand still. By becoming mindful of the experience—how heavy our feet feel on the earth, how our feet subtly change balance just to stay standing—we become aware of the moment. Instead of attaching to the experience, there is an opportunity to bear witness to what is going on to see how we are feeling. We notice our breath without panicking if we are breathing the right way.
Though walking meditation is often seen as a Buddhist practice, labyrinths are a classical example of Christian and Pagan walking meditations. Not to be confused with maze-walking that requires thought and problem-solving skills to get from one end to the other, labyrinths have nothing to solve as there is only one route through it. The left brain is not engaged at all. There is no choice in which way to turn; your only choice is in whether or not you will walk the path. This alone, for many who engage in walking meditation, can be a profound statement to consider.
Lying Quietly
Lay down and breathe in. Feel the stillness of the world around you or the music playing in the background, and be. Breathe out, and think. Just think about whatever comes your way. Keep breathing. When was the last time you lay with your thoughts, and fully experienced them? Asked yourself questions? Listened to the wisdom of what your body was telling you subconsciously? When you think about work, is your breathing speeding up, slowing down, or staying the same? In contemplation of your relationship, do your shoulders start creeping up to your ears? By being honest in watching our bodies when lying quietly, our subconscious mind has the power to slip us secrets from our emotional world if we learn to pay attention.
Tantric Breathing Techniques
The various schools of tantra teach a wide array of breathing styles and techniques. Some encourage a partner and some are designed for the solo practitioner. Some use these breathing styles in combination with body care instructions, body poses, sensuality and sexuality, and others are used alone to channel energy through the body, into the body, or out into the world. They all have clever names, and no two groups seem to agree on what to call any particular breath. Some of these breathing techniques appear in other nontantric based
groups as well.
In her text Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex for the Twenty-First Century, Barbara Carrellas discusses a variety of breathing techniques. I appreciate this text as it is the only book I have found on the market at the time of publication that actively addresses BDSM, queer sex and other varied sexuality in conjunction with Tantra.
Four-fold Breathing
I was first turned onto this breathing technique through Feri tradition workings, but have seen variations of it throughout many of groups and practices. We find ourselves in a comfortable space, and settle into our body. Become aware of it, and then slowly breathe in for a four-count. Hold for four seconds. Release for a four-count. Hold again, empty, for a four-count, and then repeat. This breath is especially powerful for slowing down time, grounding and centering. Within Sacred Kink, I have used this breath for pain processing, and for doing possession work (to be discussed further in Path of the Horse).
The Eightfold Paths of BDSM and Beyond Page 22