The Azure Flame is an important component of StrixCraft as I teach it. In my forthcoming book, “StrixCraft: Modern Greek Magic for the Modern Witch,” I introduce the Azure Flame to the reader, and it is a vital link between the individual and their Magic. In a previous post I briefly mention the Azure Flame and the link to daimons. Here I will expound on it just a bit more.

Nyx
In StrixCraft, Nyx is First Mother. She is power incarnate. Nyx is the First Oracle. There is a poem we can use to honor Hir*; it was inspired while meditating on Hir one evening. She is dark and beautiful; sequined and crowned with a over a billion blue stars. She is the Source and Dweller of the Original Fire, the seed of the Cosmos. It all begins and ends with Hir.

That being said, the Flame she possesses (and is) is wild, erratic, dangerous, and overpowering. It is the composition of a million billion suns, and from Hir the Cosmic Flames, in its purest form, is the germination of darkness.

The Cosmic Hearth
Hestia, the Goddess of the Hearth Fire, took the wild flames of Nature and domesticated the spirits with her presence and power. She is the overseer of the very fire she is also said to dwell in. Hestia’s name means “hearth,” which is the central flame in an oikos (household); it is a kind of fire pit lined by stone or brick where the central activity of the home is done. In many dwellings it is the mantle fireplace.

However, as below, so above:

According to the Pythagorean Mysteries, Hestia was the Goddess of the Central Fire. It is Fire that is the center of the Cosmos, not Earth. Here Hestia reigns, surrounded by 10 celestial bodies – the dark Earth, Earth, the Moon, the Sun, and the Five Classical Planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn), along with the sphere of the fixed stars.

Prometheus
In the mythos I teach, humanity was without the power of Fire for a very long time. Fire was a phenomenon belonging to the Gods only. Nyx foresaw the tool of Fire and how beings would use it, both for creation and destruction.

Passing this oracle to the Titans and then the Gods, Zeus felt it was too early to entrust humanity with this power. We were too selfish, greedy, paranoid, and violent. Zeus felt that the Fire would be granted to us when we were ready, if ever.

Prometheus, however, the Titan of Forethought (for that is his name), was convinced otherwise. He, too, saw humanity’s potential with Fire. But rather than keep it hidden, Prometheus – a trickster who sought to outwit Zeus in this game – decided to steal the Fire, feeling that humanity also deserved this power.

Prometheus sought out the Graiai, the first Strix, to discover how he might steal the sacred flame. So it was that under cloak Prometheus journeyed to the Fields of Fennel, took a fennel’s stalk, and then journeyed to the Cosmic Heavens. Here he took blue flame from Hestia’s hearth, and brought it down to Earth. A woman Strix took the flames; she harnessed the star flames, and she was taught by Prometheus how to harness the cooler fires in the Mysteries.

The Azure Flame was born.

The Good Serpent
In StrixCraft, the Azure Flame can manifest as a serpent. As a result, serpents are sacred in our tradition. This was the first presence of the Agathos Daimon (“Good Spirit”), the dominant life force of humanity and their link to the Starry Body. The Azure Flame is alive in its own right, but it is also tethered by the Starry Body to humanity.

The Agathos Daimon – in Strix Craft – is a quickening energy which keeps alive Awareness, Conscience, Behavior, and Forethought. It is also the key to Magic. In fact, in the old Mysteries, how to make fire was our first Magic as a people.

The Azure Flame
It is seated above the crown of the head, incorporating the “crown chakra” and “third eye.” The Azure Flame is the highest energy center, and locks with the Divine. By worshiping the Azure Flame, meditating on it, and working with it in our growth, we awaken new sensations, thoughts, Magics, and experiences. We may use it to create filters, raise energy, open psychic awareness, gain a better hold on our psychic skills, do trance work, perform healings, and seal our Initiations from life to life. The Azure Flame is a powerful tool, and it has much to offer witches who desire to connect with our Strix current.

*Hir is used by some Strix as a way of communicating the gender neutrality of Nyx, being both male, female, and neither.

Eirene kai Hugieia!
(Peace and Health!)
Oracle

My book is now available for pre-order!