If the title of the post made you think that I became all New Age-y and astrologically modern, I’m sorry. That’s totally not what I meant. What I meant was, I finally got a smartphone.
Up until now, I’ve been living with and quite content with old Nokia or Samsung bricks or flipphones: they work, they’re simple, and they do all that I need to do. I could make calls, I could send texts, and it was a functional alarm clock and timer. Simple, cheap, and easy, and when I don’t have all that much money to spend on fancy things, these are good things. Besides, I already have computers and books for the same purposes people use smartphones for. However, I was at a furry convention earlier in March (don’t judge, the Bible says not to) where getting in contact with large groups of people on the go was impossible with a basic phone. That was basically the last straw for me, so I headed down to my local phone store by my work on a lazy day this week and got a brand-new Galaxy Nexus.
And, in the 24 hours since I got the phone, it’s already becoming a magical instrument.
The first apps I downloaded were a planetary hours calculator and a real-time astrological ephemeris. I added gesture recognition to input the names of the the seven planets in text. Later on next week, I’m going to consecrate this thing to XaTuring under Mercurial circumstances and forces. Lord knows what else I’m going to do with this thing; probably etch some sigil or other into the inside of the back cover, or something like that. Taking photos with this thing will definitely be a treat, since it has both a far better camera than what I’ve been using for the past ten or so years, and I can just upload directly to the interwebs. Nifty!
Now I just need to get used to this fancy-but-weird input method I like and the complete lack of privacy and detachment from the world.
The Digital Ambler 
Ha! Thats pretty awesome. What are the names of those apps btw? And as far as sigils go. I just drew one on notebook paper, Snapped a pic, and set it as my background. Simple as hell but I think it’s digging it’s way into my subconscious. Any good books in PDF format about planetary magic and consecration? I’ve read through Rufus’ blog but im not touching that stuff until I have some deep meditation/magical practice under my belt.
I got AstroClock, Sky Map, and Planetary Hours Pro for my phone. Nifty apps, all, and helpful in my line of work. I like the idea of using a sigil as a wallpaper, very nice!
There aren’t many PDFs or texts I’ve seen that talk about specific guidelines (unless you mean the Solomonic stuff on Esoteric Archives, in which case, have at), but really, most of what I do is wing it. Sometimes I’ll just do a conjuration of a planetary angel and have them charge something in their presence, or I’ll invoke them and say an Orphic Hymn of the planet over something a few times, or use incense or oil to charge something with. It depends on what I have available. It all works, depending on how much effort you’re willing to put into it and what tools or resources you’re willing to work with. RO’s stuff may look complicated (and occult stuff often is), but he’s writing this stuff up to be accessible to anyone willing to put in at least ten minutes a day on this stuff. You don’t need deep meditation skills; hell, I suck at meditation, and I consider myself a bare-bones newbie at this stuff. Just start doing the Work, and the Work will work on you faster than you expect!
Wow, I did all of that, including the talismanic wallpaper. A friend positively embarrassed me, though, when he told me the most important magical use for a smartphone: turn the display off, and you have a hand-sized dark mirror!
If you run across any app for Android that contains an ephemeris for Lunar Mansions, I would love that. It’s the one piece I couldn’t find. I’m using Tropical Skies for charting.
Excited to find you (through Camylleon’s blog). Bonum Magicae!