Finally had a breakthrough last night, of course now I wonder how much that had to do with the Jupiter and Venus’ activity. Venus was very important to the Mesoamericans, I seem to recall hearing at some point.
Anyway, it’ll be a little while before I have the time to elaborate, but I’m posting this now so I can remember to edit it later and share the latest development.
EDIT -
The first two days especially of working with Sastan on scrying for the prime purpose of reliable communication for following up the contact with this “current”, if you will, had some dramatic instances. There was plenty of candle-flame and shadow manipulation, the feeling of Sastan’s presence, and the absolute Knowledge that what I sought lay in the mirror, whether I was sensitive to it or not. I combined my efforts at meeting Tezcatlipoca’s mysterious priest through the mirror with the scrying exercise from Works of Darkness, eliciting Sastan’s help to hone my spiritual senses and be able to reliably see, dammit!
Anyway, this exercise involves training to see Sastan in the mirror as a monstrous python, and on the first day I experienced little more than the candles’ antics, strange movement of shadows that may or may not have been -actually- there to anyone’s normal sight, intense feeling of presence, and the very vague intimation of a serpentine ‘squirming’ pattern across the surface of the mirror. Not the kind of hi-def quality I was hoping for, but then, it was only day one.
The next day, however, this vaguely outlined serpent in the mirror presented itself as made of this multi-coloured, feathered rainbow serpent made purely of glowing light. I understand that the rainbow serpent is associated with Quetzalcoatl, who is supposed to be Tezcatlipoca’s enemy - I felt this serpent to be Sastan and -not- Quetzalcoatl, but maybe this imagery was presented to me because on one level I had this expectation related to the Mesoamerican origin of the deity I was planning to have better conversation with.
In the days after this dramatic display, however, I did not see anything as vivid or blatant. Looking back, I think different levels of varying subtlety were being ‘targetted’ at different times by Sastan, almost different “layers” or maybe “filters” for spiritual sight. I don’t know, I’m just this guy doing the rituals to see what happens. I did notice, though, that these senses did not entirely go away after my nightly practice. This would be most marked when I left my temple and prepared for bed in my room (also totally dark), but I would ‘pick up on’ things throughout the days, too. But nothing dramatic.
Then a couple of nights ago, something dramatic did happen. The most important difference, I think, is that I wasn’t viewing that night as “training” or “trying”. I just went to my temenos, dropped into trance, and went through it without -thinking- about it. Now, firstly, it still wasn’t the “high definition, crystal clear” literal on-the-surface-of-the-mirror picture I was hoping for. Maybe that comes later with practice, or maybe that expectation was unrealistic of scrying, hopefully some of you more experienced people on the forum can tell me. Secondly, though, there was no doubt that rather than merely seeing images I was in direct -contact- with what I was seeking, this snake form of Sastan. It’ll be hard to describe here, but I was say that instead of imagistic, it was experiential. It was less of looking at a surface displaying images than it was as if my awareness were somewhere far inside the blackness of the mirror itself, which darkness now surrounded my awareness, a fluid and sculptable matrix of possibility in which my goal could be brought to view.
It was more visceral and impressionistic than -strictly- visual, but the few things I feel capable of describing are as follows. In front of me a part of the darkness opened. It was a huge, serpentine eye. Now I had -thought- I was beginning to see an eye looking back at me several times in the nights prior, but it just had never come to me fully the way it did in this instance. The different golden, striated whorls had a nebulous, cloudy texture to them, and through the middle lay the onyx, vertical pupil of the serpent looking back at me through eternity. The rest seemed to happen very fast, and I can describe the images associated with it, but again I stress that the most of it was really in terms of -feeling- and not easily described at all. It was less a vision - more of an experience.
The eye rushed past to my left, and in the speedy motion I was able to make out the shape of the serpent’s head, and the overlapping armoured scales, row on row on row, greenish, greyish, yellowish. The serpent soared through the space around me and circled back, looping coil after coil as it began to encircle me. It was not actually -touching- me (or my awareness) at this point, and I did not feel ‘constricted’ at all - but movement or even speech was quite impossible at that time. I just did not have the presence of mind, and it all seemed to happen very fast - better luck next time.
When I could no longer see over the towering coils of the serpent, its head came back to the centre of my vision, regarding me cooly and with -great- intelligence. I met its golden stare, and then suddenly its head was in front of my face - it opened wide its mouth, I saw the immense fangs and the white of its interior, and then the serpent swallowed me.
Mere moments after this, I came very calmly to my senses in my temple and knew that the night’s work with Sastan was concluded. Now this may not seem immediately relevant to the work with Tezcatlipoca, but earlier when I has first seen the multicoloured “rainbow serpent” I had poked around in some of the relevant mythology and refreshed my acquaintance with the Mesoamerican concept of the “Vision Serpent”. Of course, as far as could be told from what’s left of the sources, the Vision Serpent seemed to serve mainly for the purposes of summoning: that is, the Vision Serpent would be conjured up by the priest, it would open its mouth, and thence would emerge the spirit being summoned.
Going to bed that night, though, I had the queerest fancy that the meaning of the vision with Sastan as serpent in this work was that I should consider myself as being summoned, to something.
Sure enough, as I closed my very eyes to go to sleep shortly thereafter, my inner vision was awash with the impression of the bright spots of the jaguar, filling my sight. No actual animal, just the pattern of its coat, and it was -moving- in a way suggestive of the hunt. I slipped into dream knowing that I would meet the priest there, and this suspicion was not disappointed.
What I learned in that dream I was told not to reveal -quite- yet (hey! that leaves some hope), but I will say that this time he had a staff, and was dressed in the pelt of a jaguar, complete with the hollowed out head as hood.
Hoping to still share what I can!
As always, questions and comments welcome.