Yesterday was the last day of school for my 14 year old and summer break has finally begun! I’ve been waiting patiently for some writing and study time, and it has finally arrived. I have some fun writing content planned for the summer that I’ll be sharing in this space, most of it will be reflecting my own studies and current focus at the moment so you get to come along for the ride with me!
To kick off the weekend, I started a new book by Marco Visconti called The Aleister Crowley Manual and let me tell you, it’s excellent so far! This book is mainly focused on Thelema, and while I don’t share this publicly (I’m fairly private about my own praxis), I’ve been loosely getting cozy with Thelema over the last year or so. I’ve been slow to begin a practice, aside from daily Liber Resh (which I want to get more consistent with), and the reason I’ve been stalling is that I’ve been craving a primer that I can relate to. This book is exactly what I’ve been looking for and I’m beyond excited to start a more consistent practice, and I’m looking forward to revisiting some key texts such as 777 and Book of Law since I’ve had a few “aha!” moments already while reading Marco’s book so far… things are just falling better into place for me.
In this book, each chapter ends with homework for the week so I’m treating each chapter as a weekly study and not skipping ahead. I have all summer, so I want to take things slow and create a solid foundation that makes sense to me. The homework this week is to focus on getting to know the correspondence tables (from 777) and the Qabalah tree of life diagram, which I already know fairly well so I’ll be working on the Qabalah section of the Great Workbook (I’ve mainly filled in most of the astrological section so far… and if you don’t have this workbook, it’s truly amazing - it’s just a great way to keep all your notes). As much as I want to keep reading the book, I’m being firm with my studies and will pick up chapter 2 on Friday next week.
I plan to read Dion Fortune’s book next since my studies have been focused mainly on the Qabalah for the past few months. I’ve been recommended to read this book more times than I can count but just haven’t had the time to really focus on soaking in the content (it was written in the 1930’s so I’m already assuming I’ll be annotating it quite a bit). Weiser publishing graciously sent me this copy, along with several others titles a little while back, and I plan to finally get some book reviews written.
Other plans I have for the summer are to get back to my decan walk! I’m planning to share information on each decan as they come up on my Substack blog for those that may want to join along! The next decan we’re stepping into is Gemini ll (10°- 20°) with the 9 of Swords, The Tower and The Lovers. Stay tuned for that post, it’s more of just an information reference more than anything but I would like to use the new “notes” feature here on Substack to share my thoughts on the cards and how they showed up for me during those 10 days.
Since I’ve been slowly crawling back out of tarot rut, I've been trying to be more realistic with myself and not do all the things and instead just stick to what I enjoy and what feels natural to me. Going with the flow. I think we’re all guilty of turning a hobby or passion into something that feels like work or something you “have to do”… so I’m being mindful of my energy that I don’t do that with my tarot practice again, but I also want to share and write more as well so I’m taking little bites to see what tastes good and satisfies that craving.
** Please note that this post includes affiliate links. This simply means that I mean earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. All books featured are ones that I personally bought as well.
Currently Reading...
I also have that wonderful Great Workbook and the Crowley book. I will be starting mine maybe this week but I will no longer be working after the 2nd and thinking about waiting until then. Great post and very interesting read! Thank you!