Ramble on about visions...

Visionary experiences can be abstract and elusive, but they are the revelations of inner wisdom, a deeper gaze into the inner darkness we all must descend into at points in our lives.  In my path, the descent into one's inner darkness is the key to moving from mundane to the sacred, passing through the twilight and into that darkness we all fear, where those horrific nightmares dance side by side with decadent dreams.  Doing oracular work or receiving visionary experiences is something achieved a number of ways; my favorite being drink and smoke, spirit-work and my cards.  I use bones on rare occasion, pendulum even more rarely.  Some perform trance and travel while walking the poison road.   It's not the high you're looking for, that's what separates true oracle from false oracle, separates hallucination from deeper wisdom.  Those who go in expecting to see the strange and unruly will inevitably get just what they asked for.  Those going in with the heart and mind to seek spiritual communion and to see with eyes unclouded by the mundane world walk that line and succeed where they may.  


Often, the visions come as they will and one sees glimpses into themselves that help them see what it is they need to see, locked away in memories or their consciousness.  For many, the visions come with the dead, for me, either through night-wandering, necromancy or simply by conjure. The spirits come with the smoke and bring their whispers and words with them.  I like to sip a homemade brew when I wander out into the night with my stang, keys and vial of whiskey (in case I need to share a drink with a ghostly passerby).  Night-wandering requires very little by way of tools, only that I be willing to endure the cold, the darkness and the wildness of the forest.  Endure; in order to wander up and down crossroads and corpseroads to commune with the wandering.


Night-wandering may take very little, but it offers less, perhaps because there is no offering or ritual to be made, only a welcome invitation to speak with any other wandering soul who creeps along the trails of the forest.  Necromancy is far richer in the wisdom received, but far more dangerous- in my path, this ought to take place in the sacred labyrinth, and that makes the experience all the more dangerous.  Calling on the spirits of those who passed and the beloved dead isn't as easy as it looks, and is nothing like the movies portray.  Conjuring the shadow of the self to retrieve answers is a happy medium between the two.  


Sometimes the visions come regardless of what you do, but in the context of ritual designed to attain the wisdom of the beloved dead or the hidden people, a witch may turn her sights on the Garden of the Gods.  Poison-road cunning is the path of who wish to  walk close to the dead, for these herbs are conduits of that ineffable thing we so simply refer to as death.  On travels over the land, over hedge or through the labyrinth (in my trad at least), one must die and return to life while walking the poison road.  It is that death that changes us, opens us completely to moving seamlessly between the worlds. One does not need to reach that state of spiritual death and rebirth every time, that is only the initiation of the inner darkness. 


Some visions are simple and quiet- a glimpse  you may receive at any time- a piece of intuition that guides one to make a different choice or think a little deeper.  Sometimes they are too abstract to see clearly at the time and you'll seek to understand through a medium or oracle.  Others are more clear and real than your own breath.  Visionary experiences come differently to us all I suppose... I just felt like rambling on about them...