My life is an offering to Nuit. Everything I experience I dedicate to Her. Every ecstasy, every joy, every pain and sorrow; every success, every failure, every act of bravery, every betrayal. All that I make, all that I feel, all my thoughts, all the products of my body. It is all for Her; there is nothing wasted; it is all given up; it is all received.

I first heard Her voice at sixteen when I read Sybil Leek’s book The Complete Art of Witchcraft. Sybil shaped a version of the Charge of the Goddess that is a little different from the one Doreen Valiente published. I memorized Sybil’s version, and my memory matches the text in front of me, word for word.

Listen to the word of the Star Goddess: She in the dust of whose feet are the hosts of heaven, whose body encircles the universe.

I who am the beauty of the green earth: and the white moon amongst the stars: and the mystery of the waters: and the desire of the heart of man call unto thy soul; arise and come unto me.

For I am the soul of nature who giveth life to the universe;

from me all things proceed; and unto me all things must return;

and before my face, beloved of gods and men, thine inmost divine self shall be enfolded in the rapture of the infinite.

Let my worship be within the heart that rejoiceth: for behold: all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals: and therefore let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.

And thou who thinkest to seek for me: Know thy seeking and yearning shall avail thee not: unless thou know the mystery;

that if that which thou seekest thou findest not within thee,

thou wilt never find it without thee:

For behold: I have been with thee from the beginning: and I

am that which is attained at the end of desire.

The words thrilled me. Immediately I sought to find Her. As a priestess and initiate of Witchcraft I learned how to draw down the moon. The priest invokes the goddess and the priestess responds with the words of the poem.

Next I sought Her as a Pagan priestess calling the ancient Mediterranean goddesses: Isis, Innanna, Ishtar, Qadesh, Aphrodite, Hera, Hekate. Thanks to the pioneering work of John Opsopaus (also known as Bruce McLennan and Apollonius) I studied the techniques of theurgy. I sought to draw close to Her, to bring her down around me, into me.

I found Her voice again in the first chapter Book of the Law, received by Aleister Crowley and Rose Kelly Crowley on April 8, 116 years ago today. This, I discovered, was one of the sources for the Charge. This channeled work is the first time the western world heard Her voice directly for 1500 years.

3. Every man and every woman is a star.

12. Come forth, o children, under the stars, & take your fill of love!

13. I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your joy.

29. For I am divided for love’s sake, for the chance of union.

30. This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all.

57. Invoke me under my stars!

58. I give unimaginable joys on earth: certainty, not faith, while in life, upon death; peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy; nor do I demand aught in sacrifice.

59. My incense is of resinous woods & gums; and there is no blood therein: because of my hair the trees of Eternity.

61. But to love me is better than all things: if under the night-stars in the desert thou presently burnest mine incense before me, invoking me with a pure heart, and the Serpent flame therein, thou shalt come a little to lie in my bosom. For one kiss wilt thou then be willing to give all; but whoso gives one particle of dust shall lose all in that hour. Ye shall gather goods and store of women and spices; ye shall wear rich jewels; ye shall exceed the nations of the earth in splendour & pride; but always in the love of me, and so shall ye come to my joy. I charge you earnestly to come before me in a single robe, and covered with a rich headdress. I love you! I yearn to you! Pale or purple, veiled or voluptuous, I who am all pleasure and purple, and drunkenness of the innermost sense, desire you. Put on the wings, and arouse the coiled splendour within you: come unto me!

62. At all my meetings with you shall the priestess say— and her eyes shall burn with desire as she stands bare and rejoicing in my secret temple— To me! To me! calling forth the flame of the hearts of all in her love-chant.

63. Sing the rapturous love-song unto me! Burn to me perfumes! Wear to me jewels! Drink to me, for I love you! I love you!

64. I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunset; I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky.

65. To me! To me!

I joined the ranks of the Thelemites. I was baptised in Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, then confirmed. I served as a novice priestess. Intertwined with this there is a story arc of initiations in Ordo Templi Orientis. I played out that story arc and achieved the initiation required to take ordination as an E.G.C. priestess.

I have performed the part of the priestess in Liber XV, the Gnostic Mass for many years now. Standing behind the veil, bare and rejoicing as She commands, I repeat the words for Her, of Her, as Her: “For I love you! I love you!” I understand this to be a theurgic act, calling Her down, standing in Her presence, broadcasting her pneuma.

I’ve spent twenty years in the O.T.O. I’ve always been an odd duck there, to be honest, because I have never stopped being a Witch or a Pagan priestess. Even so I have been accepted and supported to do the work, for which I am grateful. To me the paths converge because I center Her. I honor Aleister Crowley as prophet and teacher, I have labored alongside others who dedicate their lives to preserving his work, but I have never centered him, or them. I have centered Her.

When I received (late in life!) a Tantric initiation and was taken in by a teacher of the women’s mysteries I found Her again. She is Kali, Lakshmi, Saraswati, She is bright and dark, death and life. When the mantras call Her down, call Her within, call Her forth from within, She comes with strength and force. It was immediately clear that this is theurgy, and where Thelema is theurgic, this is Thelema.

Inspired by the Tantric invocations I took Her words and turned them into an internal practice. I offer her incense under the desert sky and chant her name. I lead this as a guided meditation and have turned this into a video (link at the end of this post).

Recently I re-read Lon Milo DuQuette’s compilation The Best of the Equinox: Sex Magick. He describes the oath of secrecy of the IX’, the Sovereign Sanctuary of the Gnosis.

This ‘oath of secrecy’ is a somewhat paradoxical obligation. Rather than being an oath not to reveal the secret to the world, it is rather more a promise to perpetuate the secret, to assure that it is protected, preserved, and never profaned, diluted, corrupted or lost.

Best of the Equinox: Sex Magick assembles Crowley’s works that educate the practitioner about the secret. These works include the Gnostic Mass; Astarte vel Liber Berylli sub figura CLXXV, a complete description of the theurgic process; and Liber Nu and Liber Had.

As I re-read Liber Nu and Liber Had, I realized that the meditations which I have been performing are forms of these practices. Crowley frames them as rituals performed physically with tools, but the results described are cognate with the results of the internal Tantric practices.

Invoke Nuit, and She will descend and enfold you.

Burn the body, put on the wings, arise, and She will enfold you.

She promises peace unutterable, rest, ecstasy. This ecstatic union happens at death. It happens as the result of a lifetime of work and dedication and offering. It can happen in an instant, from one moment to the next, in a flash of realization. It can happen now as you invoke her.

She has been with us from the beginning. She is that which is attained at the end of desire. She loves us, She is love. Offer all to Her, call Her, and She will come.