So, now that last week’s training is done, I can settle back into a comfortable routine where I don’t feel so harried or rushed around, and have time to work out and conjure angels and shit.  There’s something to be said for drinking bottomless coffee at all hours of the day, though (caffeine is my drug of choice, and good lord it felt wonderful to be hyped up like that again).  Of course, as soon as the hurly-burly cleared up, I have to make a trip back home to see the family and find out I still have a social life.  Never a dull moment.

So, two things.  The first is that I created a Solomonic black-hilted knife last night according to the Key of Solomon, and I’m not too disappointed with myself.  It’s a pitifully small thing, only 6″ overall, which means it’s dwarfed by my own hand.  I got it as part of an initiation into a local pagan group, but I opted to go for something more…substantial.  Not wanting to have something like this lie around pointless, I decided to do a bit of woodburning and engraving, and voilà!  I have another ritual tool.  It was engraved in the day and hour of Saturn at night, since this sort of tool is very heavy on saturnian influences.  I still need to consecrate it, which involves heating it until it glows then quenching the whole thing in a mixture of hemlock juice and blood from a black cat.  Engraving the steel and putting up with fumes from the faux wood being burned is a comparative cinch, so I’m going to have to find decent substitutes for those things.  C’est la vie.  The plus side of having this sort of tool is that it’s a powerful weapon to use against infernal and demonic spirits, and the small size makes it appropriate to take it anywhere.  ‘Cause, you know, I’m constantly running into demonic possession all over the place.  DC, man, gotta love it.  I also threw on the words “AGLA” and “TZABAOTH” to fulfill the description in De Responsione Spirituum, so I’ve got a double-purpose athame here.  Nifty!  Pictures of it are up in the Crafts section, if you’re so interested.

Second, I conjured Raphael and Paimon today, after making myself get off my ass, and it went well.  Paimon seems to have appreciated the blog post and has kept me busy with learning and getting new ideas out into the world and into my own sphere.  He suggests to continue being active, as busy as I can, so that I don’t become stale and let dust settle over everything.  Understandable advice, especially with the upcoming astrological forecast: there’s an upcoming Mercury retrograde period from August 3 to 26, and as a Hermetic magician with lots of connections to Mercury, I’ll keep an eye out for how things work or change.  Maybe it won’t be anything bad; my astrologer and tarot reading friend over at The Naked Truth has noted before that people with Mercury retrograde in their natal charts tend to be a little clearer and more productive during these times than when Mercury goes direct, and I myself have that kind of status.  We’ll see.