This post picks up on and draws from some of the threads from earlier posts, such as Nothing Better To Do and many of the posts mentioned there, but most especially My Cousin Vine and Broken Homes Build Towers. When I wrote Nothing Better To Do, it was one of the times I was really thinking to myself, “I wish Substack had tags. Maybe I should jump into one of their threads and say something?” But this week, I’ve learned we’ve gotten tags. So I will be learning how those work here (along with a lot of other things I could and probably should be doing differently) and taking advantage of them to organize this mess.
[Update 2/5/2025: I’m now organizing these posts under the heading of “Hexorian Current,” and will be expanding on it soon.]
In Nothing Better To Do, I brought up how I’ve done something similar to what Hexorians refer to as a “magic drift,” and I think it’s probably something a lot of urban magicians and witches have done or discovered, as rhythm and music and movement have long been used by ritual specialists to enter trance states, or ASC (Altered States of Consciousness). I’ve done it a lot in this gigantic city, sometimes more formally than others and in various states of sobriety vs. intoxication. Today, I went on the second of two drifts I have “live-posted” on Facebook as formalized workings connected to other things I’ll be writing about. It was timed to dovetail with the Lunar Eclipse that occurred today, with much intent I may or may not end up spilling the beans about. It will probably be my last major drift before leaving here. I thought it would be a good opportunity to write a bit less autobiographically and a bit more about the magical aspects of this area and the vortex that occupies the space.
I’ll organize the information roughly around my actual drift today, but in order to set the stage for that, I need to refer back to the post Broken Homes Build Towers to which I linked above. That post ties this vortex to the digital world, video games, and cybermagic(k) via both The Legend of Zelda and WarCraft III, so there is some overlap here with upcoming content that will be tagged World of Ruin, so this may get cross-posted there. At any rate, it pertains to a dream I had years ago when I lived a mile or two up the street from here, and here is the quote:
I dream that I am walking through the Lyons Woods at night to cross into Riverside. There is a point at which Stanley Ave. comes to a dead end delineated by traffic posts that keep automobile traffic out. As I reach that spot, a terrible, green vortex opens up in the skies above Chicago, with green fireballs spewing forth. What it reminds me of is the opening sequence from "WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos." Notably, that opening scene is, itself, a dream sequence of the Orc's main hero in that game. Soon, there is a limousine parked, blocking that pathway into the woods. The back door opens to let me in, and I hop into the car. The door closes and locks. Only then do I realize that I am in the car with Dread Lords from the same game, WarCraft III...who are also Freemasons. They have abducted me.
The scene I referred to from WarCraft III was this one:
This dream and all of this work has deep ties back to my very magical roots; after all, my first magic teacher and Initiator used video games as a vehicle to teach me, and he was the one who introduced me to the WarCraft universe via WarCraft II, which we would ditch school to play at my house.
WarCraft rips most of its material from Tolkien lore and D&D, two things Matt also knew a lot about. I never got into Tolkien, and I know there’s probably a lot of references I don’t get, but that’s okay. Some day I’ll get around to it. For a brief explanation, the war referred to in the video above is between the Orcish Horde and the Alliance of Lordaeron. The Orcish Horde consists of races that are “scarier” or more marginalized/otherized in this world, such as Goblins and Trolls, but is led by the Orcs, who are alien to the planet. How did they get there?
The voice narrating this scene could tell you; that voice is Medivh, the man responsible for this war by being the magician who opened the Dark Portal between his world and the Orcish world of Draenor. On the other side of that divide between worlds, Medivh had something of an orcish “foil” or counterpart in Gul’Dan, the Orcish warlock who sold his entire people out to a demonic army called The Burning Legion. I’m not deep enough into the canon to remember or know now whether or not the Burning Legion was essentially playing both sides here to instigate this war, but I think so. Anyway. Medivh is the jerkoff who gets “credit” for letting the demon-possesed Horde onto the planet with his portal.
So I note that in the dream I had, there was a limousine parked at a little spot that I have often regarded as the center of the local vortex, and I was kidnapped in it. There’s a night shot of the spot in Broken Homes Build Towers and a day shot in the featured image for this post. Every time I’ve walked through there at night, I’ve remembered that dream and superstitiously wondered if that would be the night I got kidnapped…this even though I always knew that “limousine” symbolism was probably not to be taken literally.
Well. I set out on my drift today, again—with the intention of “opening” the portal I saw in my dream (or rather, “widening” it, because it’s been leaking for a while, needing to be formally opened). And one of the first things I saw was a stretch limo parked on my block, which comprises the other part of the featured image above.
So now I have a graphical representation of that dream, essentially, coming true.
The route I usually take on these drifts is interesting. In the previous posts referenced above, I’ve sufficiently described the magical symbolism and importance of the intersection of State Routes 43 (Harlem Ave.) and 34 (Ogden Ave., which includes Historic Route 66 on its Berwyn leg, though this Route then turns south on 43 before continuing west on I-55). One of the things I have noticed in my explorations in urban shamanism and magic is that energy flows along streets, and so do many of Wyrd’s threads. So the stretch of Ogden that exists in Lyons is not technically part of Route 66, but it does carry that essence by virtue of the overlap, for as far as Ogden runs (which is quite a distance into the middle of nowhere).
By an extension of that same principle, one of the streets I live on also partakes of that essence: 39th St., also known as Pershing Rd. (named after General John J. Pershing, who led the forces of the Western Front in World War I, facts which end up deeply involved in the symbol-logic here, especially since I take that road to the power spot in question every time I drift), runs right outside the wall to my right as I type this. It terminates where it meets with Ogden Ave. not far from here. That same point is very close to the Des Plaines River, the geographical feature most intimately connected with this vortex. I’ve stomped a lot along this river, which helps demonstrate the principle referenced above of energy flowing along lines like streets (and in this example, rivers). I went to rehab twice at a facility in the actual city of Des Plaines, and largely followed the river (via Des Plaines River Rd.) south all the way to Rosemont once while “on run" from the facility.
From here, the Des Plaines winds south and then north to the areas above, but also to an area where The Priestess’ parents lived (one, the one who shared my birthday and wears a hat like mine, has passed away) and to where she retreated when she lost her condo not long after I moved out. I spent quite some time tapping the energies in question here in my war magics with her. When I did the working I described in My Cousin Vine to “bind” the demon Vine, one of the things he did for me was fortify a wall of magical defenses between the two local bridges that cross the Des Plaines in this zone. There was also an intentional sending of spirits (some of his forces) up the river to The Priestess’ territory (upon which she did not live at the time).
Now, the route I take is very magical to me because it covers lengths of 39th St. on both sides of the Des Plaines River. It technically terminates where it meets Ogden Ave., which intersection is right next to the river; but if I cross the river via the Ogden Ave. bridge, I can soon turn onto a sidestreet that leads to a stretch of 39th St. that seems to exist solely in this particular span that essentially connects the Ogden Ave. bridge to the next crossing of the river that is open to automotive traffic, which runs right next to Hofmann tower, one of the two towers concentrating the telluric energy of this vortex. It’s like a whole magical, liminal span of 39th St. that is totally isolated within, and devoted to, this liminal zone characterized largely by forest preserve in the middle of this urban sprawl. And riverwise, the footbridge I usually use to cross to the north bank sits midway between the Ogden Ave. and Millbridge Rd. crossings.
As far as I can tell, this local vortex is formed somewhat artificially by the convergence of the Des Plaines River and the Burlington Northern / Santa Fe line of train tracks; the energy flows south until it hits those tracks, which pulls some of the current away (probably in both directions), resulting in a vortex spinning widdershins in the general area.
Some other interesting connections are the fact that the street I turn on from Ogden to reach 39th St. is Shakespeare Ave., which brings his energy into the mix in some interesting ways. Thus far, it has manifested mostly in connections to Hamlet, especially via Ophelia.
I’ve written about how I regard Hekate as my “Mother Goddess” and Odin as my “Father God,” in something of a modern syncretism toward which many might turn up their noses, but both energies are prevalent here. This general area has a lot of Hekate’s energy (highly liminal space crossed by three bridges), but also Odin’s: Very close to the particular “barrier” from the featured photo (clean version below) is a tree stump where there appeared one day, quite suddenly, an obvious carving of the rune Othala; given Odin’s connections to shamanism, its appearance right near the spot where I dreamed the vortex will open—which I regard as a local “axis mundi” similar to Yggdrasil—was striking when I did a previous working to consecrate said axis/conduit.
Again, I am very glad of the timely arrival of the Tags feature, because I’m going to need it to help organize all of the posts that will ultimately be connected to this place, this bridge between worlds, because it really does rest at the center of multiple “plot threads” I’ve got going here. I have at least another three posts planned that connect to this place, as well as some posts from another tower up north, all of which has been part of the same work.
And soon, likely after reaching back out to some folks I’ve pushed away in fear, I will be writing about more of the connections between this place and the Hexorian movement. To make a long story short, much of what I’ve written about in this post ends up tied to the Hexorian deity Eleora; and I did not realize it when I jumped in and started my own work weaving the fate of this place and these towers to the Hexorian current, but Eleora has local roots.
So there is the vortex that runs along the ground, there is the “axis mundi” I have established at the point in the photo above, and there is the corresponding vortex in the sky—which I opened during the eclipse this afternoon.
Much is afoot…and more will be revealed.
