Personal Symbol Exercise

"Lie down or seat yourself comfortably, close your eyes, and take an imaginary journey backwards in linear time to the moment of your birth. Some people I have spoken to tell me that they have visualized this rather like playing a film backwards, so that the end progresses towards the beginning.

"Visualize yourself poised to ensoul the embryo that is to become your present self, and enter the womb at the point of your actual conception. Pause for one moment to 'feel' the energies surrounding you and become aware of a silver cord which connects the spiritual 'you' to its physical counterpart. then slowly start to move forward in time, passing through your embryonic growth and the drama of your birth. Take hold of the silver cord and pull it along with you as you proceed forward towards the present. As you pass through the experiences of childhood, pause here and there to register particularly important or traumatic experience or meaningful event, great happiness, pain or new awareness, and record each incident by making a knot in your silver cord. Continue your mental travels through your teenage years forward to whichever part of your life you have now reached, but always imbibing the sensations of each significant episode and knotting your cord accordingly.

" You will finally arrive in the present, trailing your knotted silver cord. Here is what you do next: take the conception end and join it to the point which represents the present, thus creating a circle after the style of the Ouroborus, the serpent eating its own tail. This circle will represent the sum total of your inner and outer time experiences as related to the 'now.' Continuing to employ your creative imagination, lay the circle flat and step into the center. You will immediately find yourself gradually sinking fearlessly through a gentle darkness, to eventually touch down in what can only be described as the primordial womb.

" This experience will vary with each individual. Keep relaxed, breathe slowly and deeply, and you will find yourself automatically rising, but the way in which you rise will again be unique to you. But ascend you will, and very soon you will arrive at the top of this deep well of your experience. The first thing you see when you reach the top will be your own personal symbol."

Practical Solitary Magic, Appendix B page 233-234.

Tips: Climb until you cannot climb no more, if you can go up then go up until you read a point where you cannot possibly in any way go higher. If you don't see anything but a scene or a view, then look around again there may be more to climb that you didn't over look (or your spirit may be taking a quick rest and so hid it from view until ready to climb further).
When I did this exercise I thought I had reached the top thrice, it wasn't until I reached a dead end with no way to go anywhere but back down that I finally found my symbol.