Geomancy

Blogger readers - I couldn't make the Blogger site perform as I would have preferred. You can surf to http://www.lydiacrabtree.com/geomancy.htm to read this blog as it was intended.

While at PantheaCon, I went to a seminar presented by MoonSinger. The description was that the class would be an introduction to an ancient divinatory tool. Knowing that geo means of the Earth, that sacred geometry (my one true esoteric love) was also derived from the earth and it's relationship to planets and stars and knowing that geomancy and geometry share the same root word (geo), I went hoping to add to my dismal knowledge of Sacred Geometry. What I discovered instead is a divinatory practice that is slowly becoming an obsession.

At First blush it seems complicated, not as complicated as reading tarot according to traditional card meanings, complicated non-the-less. However, I liked that it was based on a simple casting method and that those who taught it seemed not so much attached to the dogma of it's practice. I have met tarot readers who will argue a meaning with you all
day long. MoonSinger and the more accomplished practitioners at the class,
played off of each other adding insight they each had brought. More importantly
that insight was simply an expansion upon one another's. I was fascinated at how
different practitioners could glean multi meanings from simple figures. So I
bought The Geomancer's Handbook available at Renaissance
Astrology by John Michael Greer (JMG). After I came home, I joined the Geomantic Campus at Yahoo Groups JMG had told me that he used geomancy because it worked, period। MoonSinger was quick to point out that geomancy,unlike other divinatory methods, had figures that were definitely not favorable. As a tarot reader, I have been carefully schooled to not interpret The Death card strictly as an ill omen. In fact, in my deck, it has come to mean transformation strictly and never physical death (I have discovered another card for that, in my deck). However, find ten other tarot readers and they will all give you some other card for transformation and physical death. Some might not even believe you can read physical death in a reading.

In geomancy, there is not a push to make all readings "good." The querent isn't going to like some of the answers they receive from geomancy. Some figures definitely aren't good
for your reading. It isn't that the figures are "bad." It is more that there are figures that would be good, better and best for your reading and other figures would be bad, worse and awful for your reading. You can actually get a,"Hell no that isn't going to happen," out of these figures.

Geomancy is made up of 16 figures¹. JMG places them in some other order in his book; however, MoonSinger, laid them in out in oppositions to one another and I prefer that method. I took the explanations from JMG's book, The Geomancer's Handbook, pages 5 - 8 (scroll down the link to find it)।This book is available through Renaissance Astrology. JMG has also written, Earth Divination, Earth Magic which many of those on the Geomantic Campus have referred to। I do not own this work yet। Additionally, I believe it is out of print. You could try searching Goggle to obtain it. (Blogger readers - my nice layout wouldn't work in Blogger - so here is a web page just for you: http://www.lydiacrabtree.com/geomancy.htm ,

You can cast these figures by putting dots in a single line and adding the dots up: Even = two dots, Odd = one dot. Or you can flip a coin and assign one side, one dot and the other side, two dots. MoonSinger set up an additional class to teach us an easier way to cast the figures which I missed. I ran into her in JMG's workshop called Renaissance Magic and asked her to please tell me what she did. She was kind enough to explain that she took Popsicle sticks and marked the dots on either end with a marker.

Inspired I went home and made my own. I didn't have any Popsicle sticks and couldn't think how it was they utilized them anyway. So I found some balsa wood in my craft drawer and used a marker to mark one side with one dot and the other with two dots. I then consecrated them and started using them. MoonSinger had talked about reading things left to right. I couldn't remember why this was important; however, I started reading my little pieces of wood left to right. So the left most piece became the bottom and so on. In the picture I took (above or in my pictures folder on MySpace), the figure would translate to:

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Puer (Boy)

Now this should be amusing to you because, Puer is about energy and enthusiasm. I just threw down the sticks not intending to read them, just wanting a picture. Yet, this divinatory tool is so in tuned that it translated my throw into what it was: enthusiasm for a new system of divination!

This amply explains why I am such a fan of this tool of divination. It is insanely simple and yet when you get into chart casting it's simplicity changes into a complex web of inter-relations only the Earth, Herself could offer up to you. the relationships are never fuzzy or difficult to understand. Yet, just like planting, this divinatory tool requires you take time with it. Sit with it.Cultivate your knowledge of it and it rewards you eagerly. It is as if the Earth wants to talk to you and this divinatory method is Her preferred method. (Do I sound like a fanatic yet.) In my quest to learn the figures,their meanings and their associations, I made flash cards. Something I haven't done in years.

I found this completely unsatisfactory. So I did what I do - I made a prayer bracelet.

I got the idea from when I learned Morse code, another binary system of communication. I couldn't remember the different letters until I found a Braille like card that had the dots and dashes raised on it. Because of this tactile learning, I soon knew the entire alphabet on sight and then it was matter of relating that to the noises I heard.

Working off of that, I used black pearls (which has always stood for occult knowledge to me) as spacers, single round silver beads to stand for one dot and long tubes to stand for two dots. I have made lots of prayer beads in my lifetime and I must say the energy of this one is really unique and different. I highly encourage anyone who enjoys prayer beads to try it out. You can make up your own prayer to say for each one or simply hold the figure and recite different aspects of that figure to yourself (this is what I am currently doing). This also helps with meditation, which most of the practitioners I have met insist is an important part of this practice. Sitting with the figure, meditating on it's meaning and connecting with its energy. See the pictures above or in the photo section in MySpace.

Moving from the round clasp, the figures are laid with the bottom most (or Earth) point first. In the close up on the clasp side, you can see that Puer is my first figure, technically it is upside down to the viewer. Opposing Puer is Via, as my last figure. You get the idea (or you can ask for clarifications and I would be happy to tell you what I have done so you can find the way best for you).

As usual, I am still working through JMG's book very slowly and reading the Geomantic Campus posts regularly. The people are nice, helpful and just as fanatical as I am (perhaps more so!). This is definitely a system worth trying.

1 The Geomancer's Handbook, John Michael Greer: Renaissance Astrology Web Site 1999-2006; pages 4 - 8