Aeric, thank you so much. I'm trying to bring some more masculine energy into my practice.
Have you considered working 'male aspect' from your 'female aspect' ? By that I mean; in many traditions, 'Wica' (and related practices) work a Sun / Moon : Male / Female polarity.
But a 'polarity' can be worked on 'one side' ( think of the yin yang symbol where one side contains part of the other side). A woman ( or, if one wants, a man) can work the 'priestess' side of the Sun energy; a 'Priestess of the Sun'.
We worked a form of it for years .... it IS a pagan thing, but this particular rite ( from which some evidence exists that this rite was 'mined' and used for the first versions of 'Wica' Great Rite and other subsidiary Wiccan rites) is in a form of more 'ceremonial magick' . In the right the focus seems a LOT on the Priest, but a few 'Priestess of the Sun' I have worked with have said that there is a LOT more going on for them (within the rite and on a subtle and magical level) than would appear to outward experiences.
I tried it once ( the priestess role, in this rite) .... yep ... a LOT going on ... a lot more than I could comprehend from just doing it one time.
Here a few snippets to give an idea:
The PRIESTESS is clothed in white, blue, and gold. She bears the Sword from a red girdle.
The rite starts with the Priest 'dead' in the tomb, the priestess purifies the temple and raises the priest and adorns him for the rite, they go to the shrine and she is concealed behind the veil (see the Priestess card ) . Then they both start invoking the Goddess of the Sun) into her.
The PRIEST: O circle of Stars whereof our Father is but the younger brother, marvel beyond imagination, soul of infinite space, before whom Time is Ashamed, the mind bewildered, and the understanding dark, not unto Thee may we attain, unless Thine image be Love. Therefore by seed and root and stem and bud and leaf and flower and fruit do we invoke Thee.
the Priestess answers:
The PRIESTESS: "But to love me is better than all things; if under the night-stars in the desert thou presently burnest mine incense before me, invoking me with a pure heart, and the serpent flame therein, thou shalt come a little to lie in my bosom. For one kiss wilt thou then be willing to give all; but whoso gives one particle of dust shall lose all in that hour. Ye shall gather goods and store of women and spices; ye shall wear rich jewels; ye shall exceed the nations of the earth in splendour and pride; but always in the love of me, and so shall ye come to my joy. I charge you earnestly to come before me in a single robe, and covered with a rich head-dress. I love you! I yearn to you! Pale or purple, veiled or voluptuous, I who am all pleasure and purple, and drunkenness of the innermost sense, desire you. Put on the wings, and arouse the coiled splendour within you: come unto me!" [Liber AL, I:61] "To me! To me!" [Liber AL, I:62] "Sing the rapturous love-song unto me! Burn to me perfumes! Wear to me jewels! Drink to me, for I love you! I love you. I am the blue-lidded daughter of sunset; I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky. To me! To me!"
And so on .... eventually they consecrate the cake and wine and it is shared amongst the 'congregation' or 'coven'.
http://hermetic.com/sabazius/gnostic_mass.htm
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Then there is the other side; in the 'typical' arrangement ( man woman : Sun Moon ) the woman can play the part of the God (in the following case; Pan ). Some people have been shocked at (and even got angry at ) the idea of this. We did it once in a large (about 200 people) spring equinox rite ... our 'God' bailed and we had to get a new one, no one wanted to. I suggested it as a joke to a woman and she said 'Okay, I will do that."
And W O W did she do the best job of it ever ! Man ... I have never seen a 'performance' ( 'possession' ?
) like that , seriously, she was fantastic .... phenomenal actually !
She ended up with the nick name of Mrs Pan .
I was going to say, that is another story ... but, ah what the heck ... I should explain what I mean.
I had the idea to conceal Pan in the centre of a circle ( a large on that could hold the 200 people) where there was a small inner ring of stones. We had dug a little pit previously and covered it with plants and flowers. During the rite, we got everyone to face outwards and she slipped backwards and into the hollow. Then we went on to the invocation of Pan. Without anyone but the 3 officers knowing at the appropriate moment she was to emerge 'out of the earth' and do the next bit.
Well she shot up out of there like a meteor, up into the air in a fountain of plants flowers and dirt ... even I didnt know what was going on ! Covered in that she commenced running and jumping around the circle on galloping on all fours and looking like a 'God know what' then she started running full pelt and jumping and flipping and contorting her body wildly in the air, landing somersaulting, etc. . Thats when I got worried, thinking the energy had somehow got the better of her and she was about to break her neck. But she transitioned to the next bit ... and maintained it all in energetic form throughout the rite.
I have never seen anything like that before ! I asked her what the hell happened later. She smiled and said she used to work as a circus acrobat.
Circus acrobat or not ... she certainly had the Pan energy in any case and pulled it off beautifully. It was an amazing rite !
I know some people poo-poo this and say the man has to be the God and the woman has to be the Goddess . But I believe we are all to an extent, a mixture - especially magically speaking. There are many ways to explore that. The above are just two of them.
) .
!
I felt out of my depth here in this thread, among you lot all so much more familiar with this stuff.