A homily for the New Moon on November 19, 2025. Written, as always, without authority.
Dearly Beloved,
Blessed New Moon, dear ones. I greet you in the name of Aphrodite and the name of the Divine on this, the New Moon of (double) Scorpio.
Gather round the fire, kids. Story time.
When I was 12 years old, a mere wisp of a thing but starting to grow into myself, I read “Liber AL vel Legis”, aka “The Book Of The Law”, for the first time. I read about it in “Modern Magick” by Donald Michael Kraig the Summer before and felt an immediate and powerful resonance. This was a few years before the internet really took off and I grew up with my Mother’s family in Southern Texas where there were no occult shops, so I had to go on a quest. I searched bookstores with no luck, but I finally got ahold of a copy via interlibrary loan and kept checking it out over and over as many times as the library would let me. I read and reread it. It made a big impact on me. Changed my life forever. I carried it around my junior high school for months like the Christian kids carried their Bibles. The library finally demanded it back, but by then the damage was irreversible…I was a Thelemite. When I was 18 and it came time for me to commit to an initiatory tradition, I found my teacher (well, he found me) and I have pursued the system of the A.’.A.’. with great vigor and devotion ever since.
So I tend to think about the world in terms of expressing my will in love and joy. That’s what makes me a Thelemite, for good or ill. My will defines my values, those values in turn define my mission at any given moment, and every mission has at least one goal, one change in the world that it is devised to bring about. One singular purpose that orients and guides me.
So this New Moon, as we wend our way around the curve of the scorpion’s tail, as we resonate and pulse with the intense martial and watery energy of this double Scorpio New Moon, I am called to remember my purpose. I am inspired to speak of that wondrous moment when we notice the first bloom of Spring after a long and deadly Winter. I am moved to write of the dawn breaking at the end of a long night.
I am called to speak of liberation.
I do not need to tell you that things in this aching world are not good. I am in the midst of doing the entrance interviews and swearing-in ceremonies for new members of Magie Sans Frontiéres (Magick Without Borders), and while I am very enthused about the spirits and mages that have been enlisting, there is no escaping the fact that this is grim work, suited only to a grim world. MSF is a last resort, a sort of fever dream I thought up as a worst case scenario, a desperate solution that I devoutly hoped that I would never have to use. MSF is an attempt to help protect, aid, and support those we can while a largely unavoidable tragedy strikes. It’s a bid for survival, a plan for saving as many people as possible.
We have been in the Long Night for many years. MSF seeks the Road To Dawn.
But what is waiting for us in the light of the Sun after the Long Night? Who awaits us at the end of the Road To Dawn? What shall be our inheritance and our legacy alike, should we prove strong and wise enough to win through this ordeal, to quit the Night and seek the Day?
Freedom awaits us in the coming dawn. Joy in our common connections and our differences awaits us. Shared burdens and shared happiness await us. And all of the people who would otherwise be dead or subjugated without our efforts will be there with us, alive and free, in all of their complex beauty, stars in the company of stars.
Liberation awaits us. We just have to do the work. But what does liberation really mean?
Liberation means an end to the extraction of the resources and labor of the many by the few. Liberation means the freeing of the prisoners, the breaking of the curses, the feeding of the hungry, the curing of the sick (and that gratis), and the protection of those in danger.
Liberation means not living in fear when we should be flying free.
There are those who would say this is a fantasy. That a sort of perverse determinism about human nature means that we are doomed to forever be a plague on ourselves and each other. Whether we blame it on Original Sin, Titan heritage, archons, or “survival of the fittest”, this idea says that the weak will always suffer at the hands of the strong, the good will always be at the mercy of the evil, and that it is better to become cold and cruel, or to become a hedonist, or to find refuge in a sad and easy cynicism, than to work pointlessly towards ideals that don’t really matter. After all, says this fatalism about humanity, at least a hundred generations have been born and died in this darkness, if not many more. Why should we believe it will end?
I say to you that feel this way that I am so sorry that the night has gone on so long that you have forgotten the light. It breaks my heart that so many of us have forgotten the warmth of the Sun on our faces.
That we have forgotten what it means to be free.
I know that it has been hard. I know that there has been suffering. So much suffering. I know that it has been dark and cold and that there have been monsters. And I know that the night promises to go on for a while longer yet.
But I believe in a naturalized theology. I believe that the best way to know the intentions and will of the Divine is to look to the patterns and processes of nature. This is the truth revealed by the Emerald Tablet: “That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above, to accomplish the miracles of one thing”. This fundamental truth forms the First Axiom Of Magick and means that we can look at the child to learn about the parent. We can learn about the creator by looking at the creation. We can learn about the whole universe by studying a single atom.
So what does nature—blessed nature!—teach us every year and every day? This simple fact: no matter how long the Winter, Spring always comes. No matter how long the night, the Sun always rises.
I know it’s hard to believe sometimes. The gods know that I do. No one could possibly fault you for having doubt. For losing faith. The night has been long, the winter has been cold, and it’s so easy to lose hope. But don’t succumb to despair. Don’t fall into a sad and easy cynicism.
Fall back in love with the world enough to fight for it, instead. Dare to dream of joy. Dare to dream of the Sun. And then tell the world about your dreams.
Steel your heart. The dawn will come.
We will find our way to liberation.
Blessed New Moon, dear ones. May the blessings of the gods be with you all in the coming two weeks.
In love,
Soror Alice
Art: Odilon Redon, “The Cup Of Mystery”, (1890)
Yes. Needed this today. Thank you.
I’m so glad it spoke to you, Kevin.
Thanks for reading.
You are welcome. Thank you.
Amen sister.