A Painful Toad Gnosis

Some weeks ago, I found a dried toad corpse in the parking lot of my apartment complex. I stopped and looked at it, ultimately deciding to take it. Via pendulum, I conversed with my primary familiar about whether I should undertake some kind of toad work. The very idea is conditioned by reading The Pattern Under the Plough, etc.

I got affirmative answers, and did some basic work over several weeks: I kept the corpse in a small, lidded, cauldron, propitiated it with offerings, and attempted to view a toad spirit in the Otherworld.

Meanwhile, I did notice an uptick in discussions on Facebook regarding the toad bone rite, etc.

It occurred to me also that -- it being summer -- this work corresponded with natural cycles of toad and frog mating. I began hearing them in the courtyard of the apartment complex every night. At times the calls became cacophonous.

Ultimately, on a full moon, I opted to utilize Isobel Gowdie's formula and shapeshift into a toad in the Otherworld. I also glimpsed ethereal frogs and toads emerging from a fountain in a place like Blockula.

In summary, over the course of days and nights, I experienced, as it were, an increasing alignment with both this Otherworld hypostasis as well as the natural crescendo of summertime toad and frog mating.

The day after the full moon I discovered that the fountains and lazy river in the courtyard of my apartment were filled with hundreds of tadpoles. I watched them with awe, and had a feeling of total fulfillment. I dipped my oak wand into the water -- mirroring the way I dipped the wand into a cauldron on the Summer Solstice -- attempting to impart some small amount of energy for their growth.

The next day, when I returned from work, I discovered that the maintenance people had dumped dangerous amounts of chlorine or bleach into the water, either to kill algae, the tadpoles, or both. A horrible smell filled the air and I found it difficult to breathe. I could see vapors rising from the water, which was now cloudy white. The tadpoles, which had swum so quickly that morning, were all dead.

I was overwhelmed with feelings of horror and sadness: despair at the brokenness of things.

Awareness of the record temperatures was a part of it. I had an impression -- fear, really -- of final desolation brought about by capitalist ecocide.

I cannot say that I have fully recovered. It is a reality of our situation that "connecting with nature," spiritually and otherwise, implies increased awareness of the danger facing all life.

Nevertheless, I want to do the work of the toad spirit, whatever that is.

Through the Hag Stone

 Flying, here, is akin to falling.

For without ground, there is infinite sky.
Let us go! We will slip down further,
As shadows, as echoes, like voices in an empty house...
Open the old, rusted gate: Nothing can be seen beyond.

"I am dead. I never was."
—I said that in a dream once, or, in a dream, once, that was said.

We'll drift down through rocks and bones.
Let us go.
In this dream: We are dead!
We'll drift down to Mimir's head.
He was a god or a giant, or something unnamed.

"Do you hear us, Mimir? Do you remember all? What might we see without our eyes?"