Chapter Eleven
In all our searching, the only thing we’ve found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other.
Carl Sagan
Space, the final frontier—or, in our case, the first of a handful of frontiers we will be exploring in the labyrinth.
The ruling philosophical thought says that we live in two states of being: the phenomenal and the numinal. Phenomenality extends the concept that everything is limited to the conditions of space, time, and causation. This hints that everything in the phenomenal is quantitative and composed of some measurable substance. We think of space as being the thing that an object takes up, as that extra room on the airplane (or lack thereof), and we think of things like length, width, depth, and height. Space, however, is a bit more complicated than that.
Yes, space is that thing that gets filled up with stuff, and dimensional properties make for great descriptors, but space is also within stuff and around stuff, and there is not one piece of time, matter, or energy that isn’t affected by space.
We also think of the cosmos, or outer space—of planets and galaxies and nebulas. But between you and those places is space, and lots of it. The term outer space refers to all of the space that exists outside of Earth’s ecosystem. Within the ecosystem, we experience space in an acute form compared to the vastness that extends beyond it. For comparison, the continental United States from coast to coast is roughly 2,600 miles (4,185 km), the distance between the United Nations’ headquarters in New York to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, is roughly 3,626 miles (5,256 km), and the distance from my office to the kitchen is roughly 70 feet (21 m). However, from the planet’s surface to our moon is 238,900 miles (384,472 km), the distance from our moon to our sun is roughly 94.5 million miles (152 million km), and from the sun to Pluto is 39.5 astronomical units (AU). Each AU is approximately forty times the distance between our planet and the sun, which means that Pluto is roughly 3.6 billion miles (5.9 billion km) from the sun. It would take me about four days to drive across the country, but it would take me over six thousand years of constant travel in a car at average highway speeds to drive between the sun and Pluto. Our solar system alone is roughly four light years in diameter and would take somewhere around 38 billion years to drive tip to tip.
To put that into perspective, there are an estimated 200 billion solar systems in our galaxy alone, and currently it is estimated that there are over 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe. The math is too frightening to break into, so just sit for a moment and think about all of that space.
Space exists inside of things as well. There is space between the cells in our body. There is space between every atom. There is even space between protons and neutrons. Space isn’t just a thing that can be filled; space is something that fills and even can suspend. At some point space becomes a bit too hard to fathom, doesn’t it? Not only is it everywhere, even inside of us and the stuff we are made of, but entire galaxies are randomly floating within it. Everything resides within space; space is the vessel for all of creation.
Numinosity and Space
Imagine space for a moment and then take away all of the stuff. Empty space—nothing exists within it, no matter or time or light or darkness or anything for the rules of physics to apply themselves to. Just an endless expanse of emptiness and nothingness. We call this the void, and it is the origin of everything. It is theorized that the universe as we know it is surrounded at its edges by the void, and that the singularity that sparked the big bang somehow formed within the void.
To truly appreciate space and the void, and to bring this back to the spiritual, we need to switch gears from the phenomenal to the numinous. The numinous cannot be explained by the laws of the phenomenal; it is a divine presence, a quality that can be only felt and observed.
A numinous view of space yields different results than those we found formerly. After contemplating how big the universe is, how much stuff it contains, and what it is like without all of the stuff, you might have been hit with a sense of awe. I know I was and still am. That sense of being struck by the unimaginable is what running into the numinous is all about. Ask yourself: What is divine about space?
For me, it is space’s ability to be everywhere, in everything, literally all at once. Space can extend beyond creation and be within creation simultaneously, even though it is a component of creation. If there were ever a natural force that was deserving of spiritual adoration, space would be the apparent front-runner.
Space has no gravity, nor can it affect an environment within its confines. It merely exists as an endless state of emptiness. What fills it and what it fills are both the infinitesimal and the infinite.
Preparation: The Feeling of Space
Go to the doorway in your mind and recite the invocation of Oronos while you draw their sigil in yellow fire.
I call to Oronos, the Grigori of Space,
Infinite Keeper of the Endless, Winged Serpent of Emptiness,
Come now from the starry labyrinth and open the sacred gates,
Be here now and in your fullest, for destiny awaits!
oronos’s sigil
See the sigil fade into the doorway, and then focus on your breath. Allow yourself to breathe naturally but follow the flow of air in and out while doing so. Take a step into the gate. As you do this, relax your body and your mind by releasing physical and mental stress or discomfort with each exhale. Simply allow yourself to acknowledge these points of stress and then let them pour out of you.
As things come up that feel unmovable, remember that even the densest of materials contain space within. Find space within the moments of stillness and silence between your breaths, and then use that to connect to the space within your blocks. Once you find that space within, move through your blocks and find the space that exists on the other side of them. As you continue to breathe, repeat this process until you find yourself on the other side of all present distraction. Remember: acknowledge, let go, and move beyond.
Step Two
Breathe even deeper now, and eventually you will stumble upon a moment free of distraction, accompanied by a sense of weightlessness. You have stepped through the gate for the first time. Just as you have been following the flow of your breath in and out, follow this sense of weightlessness as it expands like ink in water. Release yourself into this emptiness. Allow yourself to let go of any one plane or dimension or form of measurement. Become borderless in all directions.
Step Three
After some time suspended like this, reach out for the doorway and see it appear beside you. Take a step back through it and allow emptiness to remain behind you. As this happens, take three deep breaths and feel yourself slowly slip back into the confines of your own body. Take a few moments to reflect. When you feel prepared, open your eyes and journal about your experience.
Things to follow up on:
1. Besides emptiness, what other emotions or feelings did you perceive with this exercise?
2. If there was a shape or symbol beside the sigil of Oronos presented in this book that might represent your experience, what might it be?
3. Draw what it was like becoming space.
Shifting Through Space (Remote Viewing)
We can use our budding connection to space to remote view. Repeat steps one and two of the previous exercise.
Conjure from within yourself the desire to see a friend (pick someone you can follow up with to see if they noticed you) and picture their eyes. As you focus on the image of their eyes, continue to breathe deeply and then push through the empty canvas of space around you so that person and their surroundings become clear.
When you are finished, return to a state of floating darkness and then perform step three of the previous exercise.
Things to follow up on:
1. What did it feel like to visit someone in this way?
2. Ask the person you visited if they sensed your presence.
3. Visit at least three other people and record your experiences.
4. If there was a shape or symbol that might represent your experience that could be used in the witch’s dream, what might it be? Draw this symbol and explain what it means to you.
Other Preparations
Perform those exercises a few times and get a feel for the sensation of space. It is a lot to imagine and a lot to appreciate. In addition to visiting the labyrinth, it would behoove you to do some research about space and the science behind it. Part of what we need to do at this time is to really tune in to the essence of this guardian, and one of the best ways to do that is to wrap your rational mind around the science behind the spiritual force. If you get overwhelmed or confused, take a break and then ask your guides to help you through it. As an act of devotion, give no less than seven hours of study to the concept of space. When you learn something new, visit the doorway in your mind to reinforce the connection, and when you have those moments of deep interest and curiosity, lend that energy to the doorway as well. As you interact and learn more from Oronos and the others, find time to bring their lessons into your life. Meditate, reflect, and apply the wisdom gained while doing so to your work within the witch’s dream. For example, we discussed how space surrounds everything and is everywhere all at once. This means that by working with the spiritual forces of space, our magic can be anywhere we need it to be at any place. Incorporating space as a component in spell work can be an inspiring insight that could yield dramatic results if applied properly. Let what you discover through research inspire your soul to feel and sense the spiritual qualities of what it is that you learn. This doesn’t mean I’m encouraging anyone to create or invest in fake science to validate their spiritual claims; rather, that as spiritual people we look at the scientific and factual with awe. Science can give us part of the equation, an essential part of the equation, but it is up to us to solve it.
Once you have devoted time to study and are in a place of deeper understanding, you will be ready to meet Oronos.
Oronos
Oronos appears in many forms, most frequently for me in a transparent humanoid body that will sometimes be filled with stars and nebulas, but other times with just emptiness. Sexless and lacking much of a form, this energy feels ageless but ancient.
We like to talk a lot about “sacred space” in witchcraft and occultism; think of Oronos as the sacredness of space. Oronos is older than the other Grigori and teaches us that the microcosm mirrors the macrocosm. The space within is the space that surrounds and encompasses us. They also bring with them wisdom pertaining to the sovereign nature of your soul and its potential. Time, matter, and energy are each subject to space, as each theoretically could not exist outside of it. Space is essentially the emptiness that fills the universe, but what fills it are time, matter, energy, and quintessence. What exists outside of space is beyond our current level of understanding, but we imagine that even if atmospherically the universe we exist within does have its boundaries, other universes exist separate from it. As far as we are to understand for the foreseeable future, space is the stage on which everything is set. Oronos, being the Grigori of Space, is our spiritual host to the party.
Because the microcosm does mirror the macrocosm, we can think of our souls as the space within. Like the universe that space fills, they are seemingly limitless and full of every potential, capable of perceiving and even manifesting throughout time as matter and energy. The primal soul, which I equate to the physical body, is a product of matter and space. The ego is a product of time and space. The higher soul is a product of energy and space. What binds these agents is quintessence. So as space is the stage for all of creation, so too is your soul and all of its parts—what you find within, you are sure to find in the space that surrounds you. Oronos doesn’t only rule over the space that you fill, but also the space that you contain.
Oronos teaches us that by making the space within ourselves sacred, we make the space that surrounds us sacred as well. Essentially, the more we build and construct our gnosis, which is an exploration of our spirit, the more we build our understanding of the world that surrounds us. As the bud of gnosis blooms, so too does our connection to our environment. As we expand our definition of one, we expand our definition of the other. They are intrinsically tied together. It is through Oronos and space that “as above, so below; as within, so without” is made capable, and it is through our connection to them that we deepen our intuitive understanding of that process.
Congress: The Rite of Oronos
Have your journal or sketch pad handy. Perform the rites of preparation and ingress from the opening ritual. While standing before the black candle, reach out with your senses and connect this ritual space with the one in your head. Visualize the doorway of yellow fire manifesting on our plane, and then recite the invocation of Oronos (page 236).
This time as the sigil fades away, a door appears in its place. You notice the sigil of Oronos prominently displayed on the front and intuitively know to open the door. Reach out with your aligned state and push through the door. Once open, allow yourself to step into the chamber waiting beyond.
When you move forward, you find yourself floating as you have so many times before. Say the name Oronos three times and find yourself somehow standing on a firm, translucent platform. Emptiness surrounds you in all directions; you have no sense of up or down, north or south, only a sense of stillness where you stand. Say their name three more times.
From the edge of the platform a figure emerges, one just as empty as its surroundings. As it draws closer, you perceive the figure of a human but notice no defining features, and you instantly know this to be the Grigori you seek. Reach out with your consciousness and embrace this spirit as Diana embraced Dianus, fusing together, if only for an instant, to create something new and then returning to your original form.
Ask Oronos the following questions and record their unique response and the information you take from that in your journal. Take time to ask these questions as well as any others you might have for them and then to record your answers. Draw a sketch of how Oronos appears to you and any other experiences that you feel are worth recording in this way.
1. Who am I?
2. Is there anyone or anything in all of creation that is like me?
3. How do I use and consume the energies of space?
Is this proportionate to others?
4. How does space affect my spell and ritual work? How does knowing this help me?
5. Do I have a sacred connection somewhere else in space that I currently do not know of?
6. What, if anything, can space teach me about the origin of my soul?
7. What, if anything, can space help me discover about my life purpose that I do not know?
8. What mysteries can space reveal to me?
9. How does my experience with you bring me closer to knowing myself?
10. How does my experience with you bring me closer to revealing the mysteries of Diana?
11. How can I better work with the mysteries of space to impact my life?
12. What should I know that I haven’t asked about?
Egress
You may not get to every question on your first visit. Oronos will let you know when they are finished with you by showing you a well in the center of this place. This well is what we refer to as the Well of Space and can be used to spiritually access anyplace, anywhere. On another journey you might gaze upon its surface to find omens or discover new places, but for now it is our only exit. Its arrival signifies that Oronos is getting ready to leave the building. Climb into this well and just as your entire body has entered it fully, find yourself crawling out of another well, this one the shape and size of a doorway. Take a deep breath and find yourself back in the space of your witch’s dream. Complete the ritual by performing the rite of egress as explained in the opening ritual. Continue to visit Oronos and to document your experiences over your following journey. You should feel their presence join you now when summoning the Pyramid of Diana.