The Cross + The Pentagram
The Star I Draw With My Body
The pentagram and the cross have accumulated a lot of meaning.
Religious meaning. Occult meaning. Cultural meaning. Fear. Reverence. Arguments. Probably several comment sections I have very little interest in supervising.
I’m less interested lately in deciding what these symbols mean for everyone else.
I’m interested in what happens when I draw them.
Because when I perform ritual, the pentagram becomes movement.
My hand rises.
My attention follows it.
My body turns.
I face a direction.
I breathe.
For a few seconds, my thoughts have somewhere physical to go.
That has become important to me.
The Pentagram
In the ceremonial magick I practice, the points of the pentagram can correspond with the elements:
Earth.
Air.
Fire.
Water.
Spirit.
I can also see a human shape in it. Head, arms, legs.
That image appeals to me because so much of my practice lately has been about returning to my body rather than floating somewhere above it in thought.
When I draw a pentagram in the air, I’m giving my attention a path to follow.
My finger moves from point to point. My eyes follow. My arm crosses my body. I visualize. I breathe. I finish where I began.
For me, that can function as protection, grounding, orientation, or simply a way of saying:
I am here. Pay attention.
Some days that feels plenty magical.
The Cross
The cross enters my practice through ceremonial ritual too.
I experience its vertical movement as above and below, and its horizontal movement as extending across the body and space around me.
But again, lately the physical act interests me as much as the symbolism.
Head.
Chest.
Shoulder.
Shoulder.
My attention travels through my body because my hand gives it somewhere to go.
That sounds almost ridiculously simple.
Maybe it is.
My mind can run seventeen tabs at once. Give my body four points and suddenly there is a sequence.
Ritual gives the pause a body.
I keep coming back to that.
What the Symbols Do for Me
I used to be more interested in finding the correct interpretation of symbols.
Now I’m increasingly interested in relationship.
What happens when I use this symbol?
What does my body do?
Where does my attention go?
What changes afterward?
Sometimes I draw a pentagram because I feel scattered.
Sometimes I perform the LBRP because my thoughts feel louder than the room.
Sometimes I want a boundary.
Sometimes I want to clear the psychological furniture and look again.
Sometimes Truman is orbiting my legs while I’m doing it.
There are usually cheerios underfoot.
Yet, the symbol survives.
My spiritual practice has become much less dependent on creating perfect conditions. A pentagram drawn with my finger in an apartment while the dishwasher runs still gives my body the same basic instruction:
Stand here. Move deliberately. Orient yourself. Pay attention.
The Pattern I Use
When I draw the pentagram, I use this path:
Left hip → Crown → Right hip → Left shoulder → Right shoulder → Left hip
The shape gives my hand a route.
I can associate the points with elements. I can visualize light. I can use names, directions, correspondences, angels, animals, breath.
Or sometimes I can simply draw the star. Or imagine myself as a cross of light.
The elaborate ritual and the tiny gesture belong to the same practice for me.
Make Your Own Magick
I still love old systems.
I love correspondences. I love some of Crowley’s work. I love Lon Milo DuQuette. I love ceremonial magick. I love the strange architecture humans have built around symbols for centuries.
I also love discovering what remains when I bring those systems into my actual life.
A kitchen.
A mirror.
A tired body.
An angry body.
A toddler watching his mom draw shapes in the air.
The pentagram means plenty of things across different traditions.
In my hands, lately, it means something very simple:
Come back.
Come back to my hands.
Come back to my feet.
Come back to the room.
Come back long enough to see what is actually here.
Then I can decide what happens next.
