Bibliomancy Exchange ~ EllieP & Cat*

[Cat*]

Hi EllieP,

Sorry again for overlooking you during sign-ups and nice to have you as my other exchange partner this month! Here's our reading thread.

Please let me know if you have any focus area for the reading or if you would prefer a general one. Either is fine with me.

I'm open to any kind of book you feel like using.
I'd be grateful if you would do the reading with a focus on my search for a spiritual tradition to work in/with.

Our "spread" and schedule:

1. Something to think about
2. Something to do
3. Something to love (or embrace)

Pick a quote by the method of your choice for each of these "spread" positions and interpret it for your partner. (Some suggested methods are listed here.)

Readings due: 13 April
Feedback due: 15 April

Looking forward to doing this exchange with you!

[EllieP]

Hi Cat*

Don't worry - it's a nightmare keeping track of posts 24/7!

I've noted what you'd like.

I don't have a problem with any book you happen to come across, and a general reading is fine for me.

Back one day next week then, latest.

[EllieP]

Hi again

I simply picked up the first three books from the pile by my bed, flipped them open and read down the page till something stood out as significant. I kept them in the order they appeared because I didn’t want to start manipulating the outcome. It seemed powerful enough to need to remain fresh and as little contaminated by me as possible. Which doesn't quite tally with my lengthy comments, but there you go!

So here is my reading, with a focus on your search for a spiritual tradition to work in/with.

Something to think about
“I crossed my arms and turned my face into the slight breeze; the night smelled wonderful, all cut grass and faraway flowers. It was a night that made you think that the sun was overrated.”
Maggie Stiefvater: Lament

I have the impression here of someone turning away from the usual stance (keep one’s face away from wind) and doing the less usual (face the breeze full on). Crossing the arms seems to me body language for ‘well, nothing else seems right or works for me, so I’ll do it differently and stand by my decision’. What results for the writer is something that touches her sense of smell – probably the last sense we think of using when faced with a new perspective. So her interest was peeked in a new and refreshing way. It seems it also started to change her mind-set – she now sees the sun is overrated, such is this new (night) experience.

I wonder to myself which things you could search amongst that you are not noticing, or accidentally ignoring, or even dismissing for a reason. One of these might be the very thing that brings a new ‘sense’ that you can relate to and think: ‘Hey, the others are grossly overrated, this smells “natural” (cut grass and faraway flowers”) for me.’ Bear in mind taking a new perspective as you search.

Something to do
“In my own writing, I choose to twist a number of structures in ways that would make my Latin teachers turn in their graves.”
Nicola Morgan: Write to be Published

Latin speaks to me of structures and strictures that can’t be changed without losing what they are. If you do Latin, you take on the rules too. It would be shocking to a Latin teacher to hear a pupil say, “I’m putting the words in a different order because it suits me better. And yaboo sucks to you!”

So I wondered if you could decide that, when you find a spiritual tradition you might be interested in “if only this or that weren’t so", you would go ‘eclectic’ and take what you need and be blowed about the rest. Leave really dead stuff in the graveyard. Pick and choose from the available techniques and tools and ideas of various traditions and build your own personal spiritual way. This would be like jotting down the bits that inspire you and enthuse you as you search and then looking what they could be all together, for you. Be willing to twist things to suit, and ignore the Latin teachers in their graves.

Something to love (or embrace)
“This is a glorious drawing of the lion going down into the flask. Look at his tail! In a straight line, zoom! Down, joyfully to penetrate the Moon in the flask. Whoopee!”
Barbara Somers (Ed. Hazel Marshall) The Fires of Alchemy

I love the oomph in this. The movement. The zing. The snatches of phrases – no time for lots of sentences. I guess you’d need to start embracing the zing of whatever shards you find in your search, and see if they promote movement. Maybe you should love lionish movement more than fixed spiritualities? We don’t stand still. Maybe the nudge here is to embrace the ever-flowing forward movement of your spiritual life without stopping to make sentences of it. You don’t have to explain it nicely to anyone! They don't have to understand.

Summary from further down the page in the Alchemy book:
“People quite often have eye problems at this stage; we can no longer see by the bright light of the sun. Its through our relationships that the ego’s eyes are dimmed; we have to learn to see by lunar light, see under water.”

I hardly need comment – but just to note that a) this too links with the moon of quote one, and b) water can appear still, but if you could look underneath, it’s often flowing quite fast. I wonder if the first writer discovered this eventually, seeing by the magic of moonlight that which the sun had blinded?

Thanks for letting me read for you. It’s the first time I’ve done anything like this for anyone else, although I often pause in my everyday reading and think this way. It was an interesting exercise and I would love to hear your feedback, even if I haven’t helped!

And please make no assumptions from the books I keep by the bed

[Cat*]

Hi EllieP,

Here's my reading for you. I'm using a big book that contains three stories by Roald Dahl: "The BFG," "Matilda," and "George's Marvellous Medicine." The quotes were all picked by opening the book at a random page and selecting a text passage by pointing to somewhere on the page (both without looking).

Originally Posted by EllieP

a general reading is fine for me

1. Something to think about

"Suddenly he stopped. 'We is here at last!' he announced. He bent down and lifted Sophie from his pocket and put her on the ground. She was still in her nightie and her feet were bare. She shivered and stared around her at the swirling mists and ghostly vapors.
'Where are we?' she asked.
'We is in Dream Country,' the BFG said. 'This is where all dreams is beginning.'" (p. 89)

It seems you're invited to think about your dreams and maybe even the origin of your dreams. Go back to a time when you felt very little (not necessarily young, though) and vulnerable, when things were new and mysterious and you needed someone "bigger" (or more experienced) to explain things to you. What are you dreaming of, in your sleeping and in your waking life? There is a deeper message there for you to discover.

2. Something to do

"'Giants is never dying,' the BFG answered. 'Sometimes and quite suddenly, a giant is disappearing and nobody is ever knowing where he goes to. But mostly us giants is simply going on and on like whiffsy timetwiddlers.'" (p. 56)

It looks as if you're called to keep going, like a "whiffsy timetwiddler" (I think that's some kind of clockwork). Especially when it comes to the big things in your life. Could be a big problem you have to deal with. Could be something big and good. Whatever it is, keep at it.

3. Something to love (or embrace)

[Well. There's no text on page 57. Instead, we have an upside-down picture (because I turned the book round and round in my hands before I opened it). In fact, I've managed to open the book again at page 56/57 where I got the previous quote (I promise, there's nothing about the book that would make it more likely to open at this place!). Anyway. I'll attach a picture for you.]

On page 57 is a drawing of the BFG (= Big Friendly Giant) eating snozzcumber while little Sophie on the table has to run and duck so she isn't hit by flying bits of the vegetable. As you can see, snozzcumber isn't exactly a very nice thing to eat. In fact, it's a downright disgusting kind of vegetable. But it's the only thing there is to eat in giant country for a giant who refuses to eat children like his fellow giants do.

This means, you need to embrace something you really, really, really don't like to achieve something else that is really, really, really important to you.

My finger landed right at the BFG's left knee, so that could be a hint that you may be nearly brought to your knees by the appallingness of whatever is your personal snozzcumber. But you manage to keep standing. You have the strength to do this. And maybe you can even look at it with some humor.

If I assume the reading is about just one issue (and I think it is because all quotes ended up being from the same story), I'd say you're dealing with a big dream and you're about to face the price you need to pay for making that dream a reality. You're also encouraged to stick with it, to eat the snozzcumber and keep at it like a whiffsy timetwiddler. You can do it!

I hope this reading is useful to you!

[Cat*]

And here's my feedback!

Originally Posted by EllieP

So here is my reading, with a focus on your search for a spiritual tradition to work in/with.

Something to think about
“I crossed my arms and turned my face into the slight breeze; the night smelled wonderful, all cut grass and faraway flowers. It was a night that made you think that the sun was overrated.”
Maggie Stiefvater: Lament

I have the impression here of someone turning away from the usual stance (keep one’s face away from wind) and doing the less usual (face the breeze full on). Crossing the arms seems to me body language for ‘well, nothing else seems right or works for me, so I’ll do it differently and stand by my decision’.

That fits in very well with my recent decision to explore Heathenry/Asatru/Northern Tradition Paganism some more - even if that's not exactly the easiest thing to do for a queer, anti-racist German like me. For years I wouldn't even touch this tradition with a ten-foot pole due to all the Nazi associations (old and new ones)! But now I've decided that I'm not going to let a bunch of intentional racists (and a much bigger bunch of naively ignorant ones) keep me from looking at a tradition that is much older than any of them, and much less simple than they pretend it is. So, yeah, the image of facing the wind fits very well!

What results for the writer is something that touches her sense of smell – probably the last sense we think of using when faced with a new perspective. So her interest was peeked in a new and refreshing way. It seems it also started to change her mind-set – she now sees the sun is overrated, such is this new (night) experience.

It's interesting that the sense of smell would appear here because it's the one least developed in me. Which I take to mean I should look at those areas that I've been neglecting because there may be something worthwhile to discover. Which pretty much repeats what I said in my previous comment already.

I wonder to myself which things you could search amongst that you are not noticing, or accidentally ignoring, or even dismissing for a reason. One of these might be the very thing that brings a new ‘sense’ that you can relate to and think: ‘Hey, the others are grossly overrated, this smells “natural” (cut grass and faraway flowers”) for me.’ Bear in mind taking a new perspective as you search.

Again, this seems to relate to the same thing I described above. In fact, I don't think I've ever been that interested in actually reading any specific mythology than I am now that I've given myself permission to look into Asatru/Heathenry. Despite the old language and the many, many unfamiliar names, there is something that suddenly clicks with me.

A spot-on quote, and a spot-on interpretation of it!

Something to do
“In my own writing, I choose to twist a number of structures in ways that would make my Latin teachers turn in their graves.”
Nicola Morgan: Write to be Published

Even before I got to your interpretation, I already nodded my head in agreement here. Yes. Writing. Twisting structures. That's exactly what I do already and what I'll definitely keep doing!

Latin speaks to me of structures and strictures that can’t be changed without losing what they are. If you do Latin, you take on the rules too. It would be shocking to a Latin teacher to hear a pupil say, “I’m putting the words in a different order because it suits me better. And yaboo sucks to you!”

And yet, people have been using Latin and have drawn on Latin structures in ways that certainly aren't traditional, even if it probably was mostly for humor's sake. It may not be the "original" Latin, but it's probably still more Latin than anything else.
I think that's a good metaphor for a spiritual tradition as well. Of course modern Heathens won't practice Heathenry exactly like someone from an old Germanic tribe may have done. But that doesn't mean they're not Heathens.

So I wondered if you could decide that, when you find a spiritual tradition you might be interested in “if only this or that weren’t so", you would go ‘eclectic’ and take what you need and be blowed about the rest. Leave really dead stuff in the graveyard. Pick and choose from the available techniques and tools and ideas of various traditions and build your own personal spiritual way. This would be like jotting down the bits that inspire you and enthuse you as you search and then looking what they could be all together, for you. Be willing to twist things to suit, and ignore the Latin teachers in their graves.

While I hesitate to fully embrace "going eclectic" for a number of reasons, I still get your point, and I agree with it. There are some things that most certainly need to left for dead, and others that need to be reinvented, and yet others that need to be made up because there simply wasn't a need for them ever before (it should be obvious by now that I'll never be a full-on reconstructionist!). I see the point about adapting the tradition so it works for me here, while still being aware of what the tradition used to be (you need to be aware of "proper Latin" to even realize that you're "twisting the structures" of it, right?).

Something to love (or embrace)
“This is a glorious drawing of the lion going down into the flask. Look at his tail! In a straight line, zoom! Down, joyfully to penetrate the Moon in the flask. Whoopee!”
Barbara Somers (Ed. Hazel Marshall) The Fires of Alchemy

I love the oomph in this. The movement. The zing. The snatches of phrases – no time for lots of sentences. I guess you’d need to start embracing the zing of whatever shards you find in your search, and see if they promote movement.

I'm very much with you here: it's a wonderfully dynamic and image-rich quote.
I actually feel as if I've been waiting for a certain spark to get me going, and I think I may actually have found it... I'll be curious to see if it's a flash in the pan, or if something lasting will come from it.

Maybe you should love lionish movement more than fixed spiritualities? We don’t stand still. Maybe the nudge here is to embrace the ever-flowing forward movement of your spiritual life without stopping to make sentences of it. You don’t have to explain it nicely to anyone! They don't have to understand.

This is also good advice, especially the last two sentences. I like being able to explain things but sometimes I just have to give up, shrug, smile, and say, "I'm sorry, I can't explain it but it still feels right deep down inside."

It's also good to be reminded that my decision to start exploring certain things doesn't mean I have to sign over my entire life to them and stick with them forever. If they stop feeling right, I can always change things again.

Summary from further down the page in the Alchemy book:
“People quite often have eye problems at this stage; we can no longer see by the bright light of the sun. Its through our relationships that the ego’s eyes are dimmed; we have to learn to see by lunar light, see under water.”

I hardly need comment – but just to note that a) this too links with the moon of quote one, and b) water can appear still, but if you could look underneath, it’s often flowing quite fast. I wonder if the first writer discovered this eventually, seeing by the magic of moonlight that which the sun had blinded?

Can I just shake my head in puzzlement at all these references to the moon and the night? Because that's usually where my mind goes "moon... feminine... mysterious..." and then my eyes glaze over and I know that I just don't relate to that stuff. So what's with the moon here all of a sudden? Maybe I need to rethink my relationship to the night as well...

I'm also grinning about the "eye problems" because I really feel as if I couldn't see a very important thing for a very long time, and suddenly I can and want to smack my forehead all the time because it's so obvious now.

Thanks for letting me read for you. It’s the first time I’ve done anything like this for anyone else, although I often pause in my everyday reading and think this way. It was an interesting exercise and I would love to hear your feedback, even if I haven’t helped!

You did very well indeed! Great quotes and great interpretations! Thank you for a reading that was yet another confirmation that I'm indeed on the right track right now - because I can use all of those I can get! There's also enough food for thought in here that will make me come back and re-read this again later so I don't forget it.

And please make no assumptions from the books I keep by the bed

Can I at least assume that you read a wide and interesting selection of books?

[EllieP]

Hey Cat*, thanks for this. I reckon it's a good 'un! But I will give you proper feedback this evening. Right now I have to go cook dinner

[EllieP]

Okay, I’m back, fed and watered and having had time to cogitate. I've not had much experience giving feedback on AT - this my third? or fourth? I hope this reflects enough for you to know how and where you did a great job!

I loved reading Dahl when my kids were small (*cough*) so you immediately had my attention. He has so much to say about life.

1. Something to think about

"Suddenly he stopped. 'We is here at last!' he announced. He bent down and lifted Sophie from his pocket and put her on the ground. She was still in her nightie and her feet were bare. She shivered and stared around her at the swirling mists and ghostly vapors.
'Where are we?' she asked.
'We is in Dream Country,' the BFG said. 'This is where all dreams is beginning.'" (p. 89)

It seems you're invited to think about your dreams and maybe even the origin of your dreams. Go back to a time when you felt very little (not necessarily young, though) and vulnerable, when things were new and mysterious and you needed someone "bigger" (or more experienced) to explain things to you. What are you dreaming of, in your sleeping and in your waking life? There is a deeper message there for you to discover.

I dream of living in a partnership where I don’t have to hide the road I’m taking. I had different ideas on bringing up children, which were not always possible to follow in this partnership, and now my spiritual path has deviated from what is acceptable here too. (I guess I’ve not experienced an accepting partnership!) But it’s been good as well. Not all bad. When I think about it, I do feel as if I’m barely clad at the moment - in a nightie with bare feet and therefore totally vulnerable. But following my dream would mean hurting people and I’m not sure I want to travel openly in a nightdress anyway - it feels too big a step after all this time. But I need to think about what being hidden is costing me. Yes, that would be the deeper message I think.

2. Something to do

"'Giants is never dying,' the BFG answered. 'Sometimes and quite suddenly, a giant is disappearing and nobody is ever knowing where he goes to. But mostly us giants is simply going on and on like whiffsy timetwiddlers.'" (p. 56)

It looks as if you're called to keep going, like a "whiffsy timetwiddler" (I think that's some kind of clockwork). Especially when it comes to the big things in your life. Could be a big problem you have to deal with. Could be something big and good. Whatever it is, keep at it.

As above. And you’re probably right I have to keep at it. Maybe that means chipping away at the opposition without being too adversarial – maybe more graceful than challenging! If I do it ‘like clockwork’ then maybe it won’t bother me as much and my focus can be freed up to just do things my way and be happy to be ‘hidden’. Hmm. Thought needed here.

3. Something to love (or embrace)

[Well. There's no text on page 57. Instead, we have an upside-down picture (because I turned the book round and round in my hands before I opened it). In fact, I've managed to open the book again at page 56/57 where I got the previous quote (I promise, there's nothing about the book that would make it more likely to open at this place!). Anyway. I'll attach a picture for you.]

On page 57 is a drawing of the BFG (= Big Friendly Giant) eating snozzcumber while little Sophie on the table has to run and duck so she isn't hit by flying bits of the vegetable. As you can see, snozzcumber isn't exactly a very nice thing to eat. In fact, it's a downright disgusting kind of vegetable. But it's the only thing there is to eat in giant country for a giant who refuses to eat children like his fellow giants do.

I love that picture!

This means, you need to embrace something you really, really, really don't like to achieve something else that is really, really, really important to you.

That would be the hiddenness, then! ‘As if’ cloistered with my heart in a convent! If I could manage that, then I could pursue my spiritual path unhindered. It’s really important to me not to be the one who breaks things up. I don’t want to eat him! So I have to eat secrecy instead. It makes sense. Two of my high values are conflicting. And the fall-out threatens to let bits of horridness fly if I’m not careful. So yes, this is spot on. Via a picture, too!

My finger landed right at the BFG's left knee, so that could be a hint that you may be nearly brought to your knees by the appallingness of whatever is your personal snozzcumber. But you manage to keep standing. You have the strength to do this. And maybe you can even look at it with some humor.

We both get by with some humour actually. When he’s not wishing I believed what he does, and when I’m not feeling angry about being ‘silenced’ spiritually and told he's right and I'm off the path... And these days I’m strong, so this is definitely true that I could manage.

If I assume the reading is about just one issue (and I think it is because all quotes ended up being from the same story), I'd say you're dealing with a big dream and you're about to face the price you need to pay for making that dream a reality. You're also encouraged to stick with it, to eat the snozzcumber and keep at it like a whiffsy timetwiddler. You can do it!

Probably not about to face the price (at least not yet) unless or until it’s triggered irrevocably by something that happens, is discovered, or I let loose with! But, as above, my big dream is to be free spiritually to find my own way whatever anyone official thinks of it. And I do have to face the price, acknowledge it and decide if it's worth paying, and find a way through or round, if I’m to live my dream.

I hope this reading is useful to you!

Very, thank you! It’s made me think and write down stuff here. It’s usually in my head. Thank you so much for the time you spent.

And thank you for your feedback earlier. I'm glad some of it made sense!

[Cat*]

EllieP, thank you for the feedback - I'm glad the reading turned out to be useful for you!
And sorry for the long silence but I haven't had much focused AT time last week...