Anubis by Thomas Akawie.
I am entirely aware that from the perspective of documented history and archaeology the Glastonbury Zodiac is total baloney. Many can nonetheless attest that it seems to be generating a potent enchantment enabling some people of particular temperaments to have unusual and even life-changing experiences.
With the start of the new decade the Zodiac has quickly become a strong motif for me. My 6th January post featured some pictures from a visit to its centre on New Year’s Day. Glastonbury artist Yuri Leitch (responsible for my excellent book covers!) arranged a Glastonbury Moot on the subject on Friday 29th, featuring a group of speakers with me functioning as MC. It was a vibey evening carrying the definite feeling of something mysterious in motion.
My next book Avalonian Aeon will include an immense amount of Zodiac material so I have decided to post some extracts concerning magickal workings out in its landscape using Egyptian imagery and carrying a mood that readers of my Aleister Crowley and the Aeon of Horus might recognise. These details are a magickal companion to the recent piece on Haindl's Aeon trump and the July 2009 Isis of Avalon blog post. They all cohere together in Avalonian Aeon.
Two locations were featured. The first was the ruined church of St Michael on the hill known as Burrow Mump, a notable part of the legendary leyline and also in Glastonbury Zodiac lore the nose of a huge guardian dog figure marked out by various landscape features that serves as a useful doorway into the otherwordly zone.
Photo Stu Quigley.
Over the years I have conducted a few visualisations there using the well-known Egyptian god-form of Anubis, seen as a four-legged dog rather than dog-headed human, usually during the summer "dog-days" of Sirius as part of a larger process of bringing the energies of Sirius/Isis down into Glastonbury. I am well aware that Sirius falls elsewhere in the terrestrial zodiac. I share the brief details here as I have nonetheless found this wild imagining to be very potent and a potential doorway into a most interesting layer of the zodiac gnosis.
On one occasion a four-feet-long picture of Anubis painted by participant Chandira Hensey had been brought along rolled-up and was then fixed to the wall of the ruined church. It was twilight. The group orientated themselves. The Tor can be seen from the Mump. A fix was taken on it. The general location of the Zodiac was briefly scanned. We then visualised a transparent blue sphere encompassing us. The building faded until only barely visible. An enormous form of Anubis then arose from the ground around us. Our sphere floated in front of his face. Flaming red eyes suddenly opened. Behind him, the outline forms of the Zodiac effigies lit up across the landscape. Above the Tor, a point of light was seen in the sky.
The whole thing was very easy to visualise. The general consensus was that it was like watching something that was already happening rather than creating it through imagination.
Glastonbury Zodiac Aquarian phoenix with maze by Chandira.
Part two took place on the Tor summit itself beneath the body of Nuit. The maze pattern supposedly traced out by its terracing would be an important part of the proceedings. Philosopher Oliver Reiser had suggested that the brain-like pattern in the heart of the Aquarian phoenix effigy was ‘the morphogenetic field pattern for the embryogenesis of the world sensorium’ Very broadly speaking, the idea is that things happening there may impact on global consciousness.
We began by visualising the whole of the hill as flat. At each corner of the tower stood one of the Watchers of Avalon, the indigenous site Guardians, seen as tall dark hooded figures.
The sons of Horus.
For our purposes the guardians of the four quarters were to be the four sons of Horus. On the east of the summit was Duamutef. He had a jackal head like Anubis. In the west was the hawk-headed Quebsenuf. Ape-headed Hapy guarded the north. Imsety, with human head, false Egyptian beard and painted eyes took the south.
We started to walk slowly anti-clockwise around our circle, seeing the maze pattern lighting up from beneath the ground in a gentle golden glow, activating a vortex to bring the energy down. Mists of Avalon were visualised as rising all around us until the whole world had disappeared, apart from the flattened shining maze and Tor tower.
Cosmic Isis by Judith Page.
The four sons of Horus hovered just above the edge of the glowing maze, against the background of mist Thus prepared, the space was ready to receive the celestial energy. A small ball of light was seen in the body of Nuit, directly above us. The Isis/Sirius force came down to us in the form of a golden beam. Like lightning Hadit kundalini it downloaded into the Grail receptacle maze brain of the phoenix/11.11 bird, sending ripples of light out through the spiral pattern and beyond.
