Day #27 on my Search for a Soul Mate

Has anyone noticed how appallingly pretentious poetry has become?  Pretentiously written, pretentiously reviewed, accessible only to the pretentious.  I hadn’t really paid all that much attention to poetry as a rule (like many people, I considered the art form ruined by the excessively pretentious) – and then I found this little gem, while researching Ivy for my Day Book:

MY WINDOW-IVY.

Over my window the ivy climbs,

Its roots are in homely jars;

But all the day it looks at the sun,

And at night looks out at the stars.

The dust of the room may dim its green,

But I call to the breezy air:

"Come in, come in, good friend of mine!

And make my window fair."

So the ivy thrives from morn to morn,

Its leaves all turned to the light;

And it gladdens my soul with its tender green,

And teaches me day and night.

What though my lot is in lowly place,

And my spirit behind the bars;

All the long day I may look at the sun,

And at night look out at the stars.

What though the dust of earth would dim,

There 's a glorious outer air

That will sweep through my soul if I let it in,

And make it fresh and fair.

Dear God! let me grow from day to day,

Clinging and sunny and bright!

Though planted in shade, Thy window is near,

And my leaves may turn to the light.

Mary Mapes Dodge

I loved the last line:  “and my leaves may turn to the light”.  Considering how often we lose out on poetry such as this – simple, touching - thanks to the snootily pretentious snobs among us, I was thinking of starting a “Real People Poetry Anthology”.  Anyone who has been previously published in a pretentious poetry anthology is barred from submitting anything to the anthology without issuing an apology to the 99% who are the REAL poetry people  (to steal a phrase from the Occupiers).  And yes, if you suspect I’m still holding a grudge against the University of Michigan Hopwood Award people for not even offering a simple thank you to the students who submit heart-felt poetry to them … you’re probably right.  Those Hopwood People really do need an “anti-pretentious spell” cast on them.  Really.

Written on Thanksgiving, 2011

7:30 A.M.  Turkey is in the oven.  Salad and relish in the serving dishes.  Giblets waiting for the gravy-making hour.  Stuffing waiting to go in the oven an hour ahead of time.  Pie is made and ready to go in the oven when the turkey is done.  I have something to be seriously grateful about.  The Lioness of Courage.  I ordered her a shrine.  Painted red, with flames.  [www.bethamine.com, in case anyone wants to see a nice affordable wall shrine.]  As I’m employed elsewhere, I can’t do the full Ancient Egyptian rites of temple service that the priests appointed by Ramses II would have conducted for her – that would take all day - but I can do the best I can.

Here in the United States, “Thanksgiving” can either be a day of thanks for all sorts of things, or a Day of Guilt and Atonement, considering the way westerners thanked the hosts who took pity on them for their stupidity in not preparing for a New England winter properly.  I know of at least two states that wisely decided to stop celebrating Columbus Day and instead celebrate Indigenous Peoples Awareness Day, or something to that effect.

I decided to move the injection time back an hour a day until I reach the evening medication hour – somewhere around 6-7 p.m – which is when my vacation ends and I’ll be going back to work.  I wanted to do it at night when I wasn’t worried about needing to leave for work.  Today will be the first day when I do it (inject myself with insulin) on my own.

Instead I discovered how easy it is for the Bayer pharmaceutical company to steal money out of the pockets of diabetics.  I got my test meter in 2005.  It used Ascensia Autodiscs (the test strips that are used to test my blood glucose).  Last time I bought autodiscs I bought quite a few boxes so that I wouldn’t have to buy them again for quite some time.  That “some time” just rolled around, so I went into CVS to buy some more.

WRONG!!!  Bayer had stopped making them.  I was told my meter was “too old” – five years is too old??!!?? – the University of Michigan Health Service gave me these things in 2005.  Too old??!!??  Only in the land of Greedy Shareholders and Criminal Management is it too old – had Bayer any conscience, they would have made these meters to last a lifetime.  Now they don’t even last five years, while still working perfectly. 

I now had to buy a new meter, new lancets and new testing strips.  The lancets were so weak they didn’t puncture anything.  The tester was so poorly designed it kept kicking out error messages.  The cost was astronomical.  I came home so angry I was prepared to go kick in Bayer’s front door and curse them and their greedy shareholders out, because, trust me when I tell you, the only reason they did this was to heist money out of the pockets of diabetics and put it into the pockets of shareholders.  (Note to all the idiots complaining about the OWS protestors?  1):  stop listening to Fox News because they are lying when they call protestors drug adicts and alcoholics.  Watch Global Revolution TV and see for yourself how desperately unethical ALL of the major news outlets are, and 2) Here’ a good reason why people are complaining.)  And of course I came home without the correct test strips and sat on my bed in tears, unable to test anything.

11/23/11: The Day I Heard Sekhmet Roar

You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honor. (Aristotle)

Since my Grandmother came back from the dead and reminded me of her embroidery skills (see last entry), I was thinking of a somewhat creative endeavor.  I’d ordered a few yards of  on-sale white linen to make a cheap and easy robe (stole the basic pattern off of the Servants of the Light website); was thinking of trying to embroider some motifs on a stole I could use with it.

Shuffled off to Breaking Dawn, Part I  on Monday and then off to buy groceries.  Movie:  satisfying.  Really impressive:  the make-up and CGI (I assume) talent that turned Kristen Stewart into a skeletal anorexic as she got more and more pregnant.  Since I’ve seen her in interviews quite recently, it’s obvious she never looked that bad – it was all make-up and special effects, and holy crap, did she look dreadful.  Dumb women who really ARE anorexic should watch that movie just to see how creepy and sickening they really look.  Kudos to Kristen Stewart for being willing to look that skeletal and dreadful for a movie role, even if she really wasn’t.

Grocery shopping:  exhausting.  Attached a food grinder attachment to the Kitchen Aid MixMaster for the first time this morning.  Made Mom’s Cranberry-Orange relish, a Thanksgiving staple, which I’d never been able to make because a blender is not the same thing as a food grinder, I don’t care what anyone says; and I only bought the food grinder this year.   (Acually, I don’t know if anyone ever DID say that, I’m just heading them off at the pass should they get a mind to).  It still has to – what’s the word? – all I can think of is “settle” … “meld the flavors” … oh, who knows?  It has to stay in the refrigerator for a day or so, to taste right, for the flavors to infuse … or something.  The other Thanksgiving staple that has to be made ahead of time is Mom’s Thanksgiving stuffing, another dish that has to sit in the fridge for a day or so, to let all of the onions and sage and celery seed and other herbs and spices absorb into the toast cubes just right.

Tuesday:  Was supposed to get my back, feet and legs x-rayed  by the back surgeon.  I was depending on him too much to fix me, I know that.  But I was getting more and more crippled and was too young to be that way.

Ever see the movie, Vampires Suck?  He leaves her and she has a temper tantrum on the floor of the forest:  rolling around on her back, screaming, pounding her fists, kicking her legs.  It’s so over the top it makes you laugh.  Not so funny when it was me (in my own imagination, that is), after NOT getting my feet and legs x-rayed:  I hate doctors, I hate doctors, I hate doctors, I hate doctors!!!  Instead it was more medicine, more medicine, more medicine!!!!  I don’t want more medicine!!!  Fix me, fix me, fix me, you bastards!!!

But nooooooooo.  Back to the neurologist for another bout of tasering.  Another bout of physical therapy.  More intense medication, so strong he wants me to start it on a Friday, in case I pass out.  I was suddenly completely exhausted by it all.

Sekhmet’s Roar

After that round of unhappiness, it was off to the endocrinologist.  I should mention that there is one other teensy weensy insignificant little snag on the road to true bliss with a soul mate I might not have mentioned until now.  Cowardice.  By which I mean “needle phobia”.  By which I mean:  if I didn’t somewhere find the courage to inject insulin into myself by Wednesday, I was going to die a slow and painful death, which would probably make the search for a soul mate a moot point.  The oral medication had stopped working.  I needed insulin and I needed it now.  And the needle phobia prevented me from injecting myself with anything.

The needle phobia is a life-long problem.  One of my father’s most humiliating moments  was taking his five or six year old daughter to the pediatrician (can’t remember where Mom was) after I’d slid on a wooden floor in a pair of tights and got a huge splinter in the bottom of my foot.  Off to have it removed.  Next requirement: a tetanus shot.  The doctor and my father literally had to chase me around the doctor’s office, out into the waiting room, me screaming in terror at the top of my lungs – fear must have given me wings for me to outrun the both of them with a still-sore foot, but I did.  My father was completely embarrassed by my behavior, and both of us still remember that event.

Suddenly I was facing the prospect of giving daily injections to myself, and the fear was eating me up inside.  I already knew that the needles were so small I didn’t even feel them, but it’s a phobia I’m combatting here – logic didn’t really apply.  I printed out an article on needle-phobia for the doctor, as I don’t think either one of them – doctor or nurse practitioner – know how debilitating it is.  I was so stressed out on Wednesday morning I forgot to bring the printout with me.

Wednesday, November 23^rd, the Day Before Thanksgiving.  Back to the Endocrinologist for another round of insulin injections.  I’d stopped at CVS only to be handed a bunch of nonsense I couldn’t identify:  a pen which was not the injector, a bag of needles I had no idea what to do with, and no insulin.  I headed back for the doctor’s office, feeling confused, nauseous and frightened.  To make the stress worse, there was an inexplicable traffic jam (in North Andover?) which made me ten minutes late.

On the other hand, I remembered that I did manage to combat another phobia a few years ago, so maybe there was hope for me.  That one was thunderstorms.  How did I do it?  I got tired of it, plain and simple; it ran my life so totally I got tired of it.  I thought, maybe that will work in this case.

I’d printed out a Charge which reminded me of Sekhmet generally, and specifically (“and the fear that coils about your heart in the times of your trials”) concerning what I was facing.

I am the Queen of Magick and the dark of the Moon,

hidden in the deepest night.

I am the mystery of the Otherworlds

and the fear that coils about your heart in the times of your trials.

I am the soul of nature that gives form to the universe;

it is I who awaits you at the end of the spiral dance.

Most ancient among gods and mortals,

let my worship be within the heart that has truly tasted life,

for behold all acts of magick and art are my pleasure

and my greatest ritual is love itself.

Therefore let there be beauty in your strength,

compassion in your wrath,

power in your humility,

and discipline balanced through mirth and reverence.

You who seek to remove my veil and behold my true face,

know that all your questing and efforts are for nothing,

and all your lust and desires shall avail you not at all.

For unless you know my mystery,

look wherever you will, it will elude you,

for it is within you and nowhere else.

Behold, I have ever been with you,

from the very beginning,

the comforting hand that nurtured you in the dawn of life,

and the loving embrace that awaits you at the end of each life,

for I am that which is attained at the end of the dance.

I am the womb of new beginnings,

as yet unimagined and unknown.

The Charge of the Crone

written by Jim Garrison

I remembered pleading with Sekhmet to roar when I met the psychic.  Was she even standing behind me somewhere, or was she doing things her own way, in her own time?

As I was sitting in the doctor’s office, clutching my plastic CVS bag of nonsense, I whispered, “Sekhmet, please help me.  Please give me a tiny crumb of your courage,”

I could envision her on the wall.  The Sekhmet I saw on the wall merely regarded me implacably, not moving, not speaking, just watching me.  I knew that the fear had changed somewhat, to a fear of shaming her, of disappointing her, but I wasn’t aware of the meaning of the shift.  I thought it was just that she had no use for cowards, or for whiners.

The doctor came back into the room, preparing to give me an insulin dose.  Since CVS had so utterly messed up the prescription, the doctor decided to give me a set of freebies:  an injector and two bottles of insulin.  Before I could talk myself out of it, I asked her to show me how to load the syringe.  A little surprised, she quickly consented.

I loaded the syringe myself.  5 ml.  10 ml.  I withdrew the syringe from the tiny bottle.  The doctor prepared to re-take the syringe and inject the insulin herself, knowing darn well that I couldn't do it, and pleased that I had done that much.  We were discussing taking myself off to Lawrence Hospital on Thanksgiving to have them give me insulin.  The problem was, we were pretty sure Blue Cross/Blue Shield wouldn’t cover it.

“Show me how to load the injector,” I said.  And she did.  Without looking down, I pressed the injector against my skin … looked at Sekhmet’s face on the wall.

“Sekhmet, I love you,” I said softly, pressed the injector button … and injected myself wth insulin.

The doctor’s jaw dropped in shock.  “You DID it!” she cried.  “You actually did it!!”  This was the woman who had watched me literally unable to do it for the last 6 years – well, as long as I’d lived here, but believe me when I tell you, I couldn’t have done it before then, either.

I of course burst into tears, but the phobia had broken – just like that – and I had suffered from the phobia since I was a small child.

Sekhmet chuffed softly, turned, and strolled away from me calmly – she’d done her part and had other important things to do that day.  Apparently, dissolving a life-long phobia that meant the difference between life and death in her fiery breath was worth her attention.  Getting the attention of a psychic wasn’t all that important.  Lesson learned.  She doesn’t roar for the fun of it.

Day #25 of My Search for My Soulmate – and How Damien Echols Stole My Reading

VACATION!  Andre Bocelli is singing, appropriately, Libertá, and the song is so joyful it makes me want to dance.  The cats, in grave danger of being tripped over,  fallen on and utterly squashed, if such an event were to occur, are quite pleased that I have restrained myself from trying – and failing, I’m quite certain, with the useless feet and legs I have – to dance. 

Two days until I can finally get a set of snow tires put on the car … three more days until the surgeon can tell me what’s wrong with my lower legs and feet … luckily, I’ll have something fun to do before the back surgeon hits me with the bad news (i.e., “HA HA!  ’yer crippled for life!  Live with it, ‘ya gimp!!”) – Part I of … er … draws a blank on the title … you know, that Twilight movie - opened yesterday, so I’ll be able to sneak into a matinee on Monday after all the screaming teenaged girls have cleared out and gone back to school and have my own guilty pleasure moment.  Forget Team Jake or Team Edward – helllooooo, Team Quileute!  Er, I mean Gil Birmingham!

Was awakened this morning with more horrible leg and foot tendon and muscle cramps that turned my feet inward and down – I couldn’t even press my feet down flat on the floor to get the cramps massaged out.  The “Search” is temporarily on hold until I can get a diagnosis on my legs and feet – the last thing I want to do is saddle some poor guy with a crippled soul mate.

So I attended a “Messages from the Beyond” thingie this afternoon, at a local occult bookstore.  The last time I had any contact with a psychic at all was at a Renaissance fair, about 10 years ago.  The woman ten years ago couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn – not a single thing she said was right.  Didn’t have much hope for this thing either – I was just curious.  I had one question for the “Great Beyond”:  were my feet going to be healed, or was I going lame?”

I shuffled out of it thinking I must have some psychic black box surrounding me – the psychic (who I’d never met before; I didn’t know anyone in the room either) – hit so many bulls-eye’s it was staggering … didn’t even go fishing for them either … but only one of them was about me.  That one was impressive in its specificity, but had nothing to do with my feet:

“Older woman behind you, passed on.  She says she was an excellent embroiderer.  You have a lot of her work.  The sewing table that she bequeathed to you was stolen.”  Bulls-eye.  I mean, such a bulls-eye my jaw dropped.  Maternal grandmother.  Every word of that was true.

That was it, though.  Here are the remainder of them:

“I see a young man, connected with you, isolated for a long time.  I don’t know why.  Why am I seeing the Boston Red Sox?  He’s, like, REALLY obsessed with the Boston Red Sox.  Sagittarius.  Do you know who that is?”

I gulped for a second time.  Well yes and no.  Knew who it was, but “connected with me”?  How does someone say, “Yeah, he’s my signpost”?  More importantly, what’s he doing in my reading?  Never met the guy in person, and besides, he’s galavanting around in bleeping New Zealand!  Let him get his own reading!  She went on:

“Well, the spirits say to tell him they’re working on him.  He hasn’t passed, right?  He’s still alive.  Has he been ill?”

I mutter, “Yeah, I think so, maybe,” still P.O.’ed that Damien hijacked my reading.  Besides, I wasn’t the world’s best expert on his health, either.

“Well, tell him they’re helping him.  Lots of spirits are gathered around him, helping him.  He’ll get much better.  He feels downhearted about it.  But he’ll be fine.”

“Uh … okay.”

WHAT ABOUT ME??!!??  Am I going to be a cripple?  I’m getting pissed at Sekhmet, too, for being so silent.  Why don’t they see a lioness behind me?  I think, “Sekhmet, will you roar or something?”

The psychic turns to a woman two seats away from me.

“Why do I see an Egyptian Temple?  I see you walking through two gigantic pillars into an Egyptian temple.”  She goes into more detail about being drawn to an Egyptian spiritual being.

"You're going to learn a great deal from this being; you'll experience a tremendous amount of spiritual growth."

Now I’m thinking, “Huh?  Wait, that’s ME, that’s the temple at Karnak.  Sekhmet is through those pillars.”

The woman two seats away from me looks startled and completely clueless and then goes, “I dunno, maybe because I read a biography of Cleopatra?”

My head drops in despair.  Remind me never to go to one of those things ever again.  I alays walk out of them feeling utterly ignored by the universe in general and completely “unreadable”.

Anyway, Damien?  You’re going to get better.  There.  Message delivered.  As for whether or not I’m going to get better?  Who knows?  Kudos to the psychic – she did hit a string of bulls-eyes, I have to admit.  I just wish they had been about me.

Day #24 in my Search for my Soulmate: Wands and Trees

I probably should have done a little more research before blowing up at the late Scott Cunningham (see last entry), thinking I was the only person on the planet who refused to subscribe to the theory that wands must be snatched from living trees:

“Many wand makers prefer to only take wood that has already fallen from a tree. This can be a problem since most fallen wood is [sic] already begun rotting, unless you get storm wood (fresh wood that has fallen during a storm). If your wood can be found locally I would suggest getting storm wood, especially since the separation from the tree came during a time of great power of change…Wood from a tree that has been struck by lightning is VERY powerful, I call it Lightning Wood. This type of wood is so powerful I wouldn't suggest anyone making or using one unless they are experienced.”

www.magicwandsofwizardry.com/magic-wands_028.htm

The first thing you need is some sort of rod. Driftwood is choice because it is tough, the bark is already gone, and it is worn smooth. Make sure it’s sturdy, though. The wrong piece can shatter. If you have no access to driftwood and aren’t planning a Spring Break at the beach before the time you want to have a wand, look for a branch. Sometimes campuses have their trees and bushes trimmed and they leave the branches lying around for someone to pick up. Look for a relatively straight branch about the width of your forefinger or thumb and about 12 to 18 inches long (Some traditions call for a wand of 21 inches). …

http://www.collegewicca.com/BOSfiles/wand.html

Many books tell you to ask a tree if you may cut a branch to make a Wand, but I do not suggest this. Leave the trees alone and see what branches they have already shed on the ground. Look on the ground for a fallen branch whose shape pleases you. Peel the bark off, or you can leave some of the bark on if you like.

http://www.realmagicwands.com/MakingWands.html

The next example is an author with the improbable name of Alferian Gwydion MacLir, whose parents (if they actually named him that in the State of Minnesota) ought to be brought up on charges of getting their kid beaten up all the way through his public school years.  Let’s all hope he named himself that, and can bring himself up on charges instead:

“Some among the wise insist that a wand must be cut from a living tree.  I do not think that is necessary; so-called deadwood is not dead in the spiritual sense, and the dryad in it can be awakened just as with a branch cut green.”  (Wandlore, Alferian Gwdian MacLir, page 27)

The author of the book also has a website (http://www.bardwood.com/), where he crossly forbades people from quoting him without wasting everyone’s precious time asking his permission:  “You are laid under a binding geas to ask permission before quoting material from this web site. I mean it. You don't want to break out in boils, do you? I didn't think so.”

No, but since I don't like being threatened either, I decided to applaud the man for his book comment (above), copy stuff from the book without permission, and restrict myself to copying his injunction from the web site without written permission, just to see if he'll stick to his threat to curse me with a bad case of boils.  Of course, if I knew what boils actually were, it would help. 

Meanwhile, I'm setting up a counter-spell on THIS blog to curse him with a serious case of the weeping wilties (and he's a man; I'm sure he knows that the weeping wilties are), if I break out in so much as a pimple.  COPIED WITHOUT PERMISSION ON A DARE! NYAH NYAH HYAH!!!  COME & GET ME!  (<-- hard to believe I'm actually polite and loving with trees, isn't it?)

Prepare for the counter curse!  ("Swish and flick!  Swish and flick!") ("KABOOM!) (Uh-oh, I think I'm going to need a new wand ...")

My ultimate point was:  it seems I’m not all by myself out in left field here, screaming about cutting wands out of live trees.  And my second ultimate point was:  see, I told you I was a disaster as a witch.

Day #23 of My Search for My Soul Mate

Sekhmet has arrived.

Call me neurotic, but I generally like to wash things off that arrive in my home from elsewhere – you never know who sneezed on things, or handled things immediately after leaving the ladies room without washing their hands, etc., etc. (and I say that not because I suspect Sacred Source of anything so heinous but because far too many times I have  watched women from my office stink up the woman’s room with clouds of fecal matter and fart-fragranced air, and then leave without even considering running their hands under water, never mind the soap.)

The irony?  When a woman shuffles out the door, she has to pass right by a sign that orders her to wash her hands.  The drawing that accompanied the sign, if you didn’t realize those were soap bubbles, actually looked like applauding hands.  These women are so stupid they must assume they were being applauded for releasing what had to be a world record stink-bomb of a bowel-movement and then not washing the stench of droplets of fecal material off of their hands.

“Yay!  Congratulations!  You’re a world class pig!”

Who raises these women?  MY mother would have hauled me back to the sink by one ear if I’d even thought about not washing my hands.  You don’t even want to THINK about the piglets these women are raising.

But back to Sekhmet.

I didn’t read the description carefully enough – I was expecting she’d be black in color, instead she was painted to resemble green marble.  Went to wash her off with a moist paper towel, and ended up with a paper towel soaked with a turquoise blue color.  Said, “&^%$%^&*”.  Next I tried a Lysol wet wipe out of  green plastic can.  Same result.  Now I have no idea what to do.  Spray her with Lysol or something?  Nothing like the vision of asphyxiating one’s deity in clouds of toxic fumes.  Maybe I’ll test a swipe of alcohol on the bottom of the statue where it won’t be visible if ALL of the paint dissolves.

I decided to research “ritual baths”, looking for a ritual bath guaranteed not to dissolve resin paint, which is why I ended up with Scott Cunningham’s Magical Herbalism, which I already had, from my Enchantments days.  I’d had that book for so long, the pages were turning beige instead of white.  I hadn’t even started reading about “ritual baths guaranteed not to dissolve resin paint”, because I got sidetracked reading about tools you might need if you decided you wanted to get involved in “Magical Herbalism”.  First on the list was a magical knife for cutting herbs, which I’d already learned was called a “boline”.  I looked some up, and at every turn was met with, “NOT TO BE SOLD IN MASSACHUSETTS!”.

Say what?!?

Now, here’s the catch – I already had knives I used to cut herbs .. and other things.  A few of them I’d even bought in Massachusetts – at the grocery store, in the “kitchen supplies” aisle.  I wasn’t even planning to buy a boline – until I was told that by law, I couldn’t.   All of a sudden, I couldn’t live without a boline or an athame.  I had to have them.  I had to have them NOW.  Actually, until that moment, I had always used kitchen shears to snip herbs for meal times.  Now I just HAD to have a two-sided herb knife or I’d die.

Massachusetts, it seems, has still not developed the intelligence to move past her Salem Witch Trial Days, and certainly not past the days of Prohibition.  Nothing makes an item of desire more desirable than absolutely forbidding it.  Massachusetts is a stupid state.  If you’re a witch, or a wizard, in Massachusetts, you have to sneak out of state, buy an athame or a boline in some other state, and sneak it back in the Nanny State and risk getting arrested and thrown in jail.  Like Damien was thrown in jail for reading Aleister Crowley and calling himself wiccan.  You wouldn’t have thought so, but apparently Massachusetts was as backward as Arkansas.

I was pretty much stunned.  Really, I hadn’t even considered buying either one – probably ever – the thought had never even crossed my mind.  Now I was  searching high and low for shops in New Hampshire or Maine that sold them. Then I stopped myself, while I waited to calm down.    I have never been so homesick for New York as I was, after trying to cut herbs in Massachusetts.

America.  Land of the Free, huh?  Not in Massachustts, it ain’t.

Meanwhile, I tried mixing up the annointing oil with my new eyedropper.  Smelled wonderful, but why does the scent disappear so quickly?  I decided I liked the scent better without the orange oil, and tried to figure out why.

The last thing I did before closing the book was have a silent raging argument with the late Scott Cunningham (and probably the Gardnerians too, if they hold to the same opinion) about making a wand.  Not only do the instructions call for you to remove it from a living tree, they want you to remove the bark.  My immediate reaction?  “[BLEEP!!] THAT!”

Truth is, mine is well over 30 years old at the moment, and it picked me.  I also knew nothing about trees at the time (and still don’t) and couldn’t tell you what kind of tree it came from.  I assume the universe knew what it was doing when it handed this beautiful wand to me.  Not only did I find it lying forlornly on the ground, but removing its beautiful bark never even occurred to me.  Years of holding it and always having it near me has left it with a beautiful sheen on the bark.  I love the thing.  When I wandered away from the Wicca lessons, it served as the best back scratcher on the planet.  I have carried it all over the United States and it’s still awesomely beautiful.

And not once did I harm a living tree to obtain her.  Screw THAT!  He may be far more experienced in Wicca than I am, but I still know he was wrong when he wrote that.  And witches are still wrong if they keep spreading that misinformation around.

Witches:  Rewrite your books.  It is NOT necessary that a wand come from a living tree.  The essence of the tree remains with the branch even if it is no longer attached to the tree, and ripping it away from a living tree is cruel to the wand and to the tree.  In fact, your essence bonds more easily to a wand not still bonded to a living tree.  These instructions are WRONG!  Using wood you obtain from the ground is equally valid.  If the wand finds you (easily determined by having it catch your eye and you finding it beautiful), claim it and make it your own.  And the bark is a beautiful part of the wood.  Trust me.  YOU look better with your skin on; so does the wood.

Making the Day Book is turning out to be rather fascinating … on November 9^th, I learned all about the Loy Krathong festival in Thailand.  This year it’s being held on the 24^th of November; Diane Stein in her “Goddess Book of Days” apparently didn’t think her readers would look it up and discover that it’s a floating holiday, and supposed to coincide with a full moon – Stein put it in her book on the 9^th.

Google some images of the festival, and it’s really rather beautiful – all these tiny lights floating on rivers, as everyone uses the festival to floating away their misfortune and bad things in the past and asking for good luck in the future.   Trying to envision what would happen if I went and floated something on the Charles.  Ehhhh … knowing the Boston Police, I’d probably get arrested.  Either for that, or for sneaking back into the state with a ritual herb cutting knife.

But now … back to Sekhmet.

"I am the Darkness behind and beneath the shadows.

I am the absence of air that awaits at the bottom of every breath.

I am the Ending before Life begins again,

The Decay that fertilizes the Living.

I am the Bottomless Pit,

The never-ending struggle to reclaim that which is denied.

I am the Key that unlocks every Door.

I am the Glory of Discovery,

For I am that which is hidden, secluded and forbidden

Come to me at the Dark Moon and see that which can not be seen,

Face the terror that is yours alone.

Swim to me through the blackest oceans

To the center of your greatest fears--

The Dark God and I will keep you safe.

Scream to us in terror, and yours will be the Power to Forbear.

Think of me when you feel pleasure, and I will intensify it,

Until the time when I may have the greatest pleasure

Of meeting you at the Crossroads Between the Worlds."

Charge of the Dark Goddess

http://www.angelfire.com/moon/mothergoddess/SekhmetShrine.html

Day #22 Soulmate Search

And More Things I Learned from Damien Echols

Now I’m experimenting with wheatberries.  I never had them before, and after my disaster with the Japanese radishes (see 2 entries ago), I made sure I was purchasing the right grain.  Of course, then I discovered I had nothing except ugly Tupperware dishes to store the grain in.  Oh, if that doesn’t make me feel just feel so un-countrified unhippy-ish, doing that.  Tupperware.  How suburban.  How provincial!  How un-continental.  I’m physically tying myself to a chair so as not to run out the door and over to Home Goods, looking for a chic ceramic container, since it would be made in China anyway.

I managed to combine numerous cultures into one lunch:  Egg drop soup (China), with spinach (Nepal to China where it was, and still is, known as the "Persian green"), and corn (or maize (zea mays), a domesticated plant of the Americas), wheatberries  (Babylonians, Hittites, Hebrews, Romans, Arabs and Egyptians), matzoh balls (Jewish) and saffron (India and Spain).  Could I cram more stuff into one soup bowl??  Anyway, it was delicious.
 

LOSS AND GAIN.

How sadly beats the heavy autumn rain;

How mournful drives the wind among the trees;

Along the shore the weary sailor sees

The waves roll in that send him out again;

The birds are restless in the scattered leaves,

The clouds move wildly on in massy fold,

And all the outer world, or earth, or air,

But yesterday so warm, so fair,

Is changed, and in a night, to drear and cold.

Now goes the golden autumn far away;

Now nearer comes the winter to my door;

And thus doth Nature, working evermore,

Create new life from changes and decay.

Between the Lights, page 355

A week or so ago, I was checking out Damien’s journal, which I’ve taken to calling “The Book of Damien” when I quote him in my Day Book, quickly turning into a Book of Shadows, mainly because I enjoy imagining archeologists 500 years from now unearthing my Day Book and trying to figure out what “The Book of Damien” was.  Yes, sadistic cruelty aimed at future archeologists IS my hobby, I’m sorry to say.  On October 25^th of 2010 he wrote,

“The archangel who presides over these things is Azrael. He’s commonly known as the “Angel of Death,” although I think that sounds a little scary to most people. Azrael not only escorts the dead to heaven but also helps the living get through the grieving process. We can also give him the emotions and states of mind we’ve outgrown, so that we can move forward. Azrael takes away fear, doubt, anger, worry, stress, and resentment. If it stands in the way of your developing a closer relationship with the Divine, Azrael will remove it.”  (Book of Damien, 25OCT2010)

Aside from the fact that I can’t find “Azrael” in my Lewis & Oliver Angels A to Z book (I wonder if he’s in Michele Belanger’s book on Demons), Damien really has become my Signpost Guy, because at that very same time he mentioned Azrael, I had begun reading all about Sekhmet, who had, it seems, a lot of the same characteristics as Azrael.

 

Azrael, I have to say, really does personify the utter terror westerners have for death.  Just google images of “Azrael” and see what you come up with.  Except for the one pimply kid who drew Azrael as a women with unnaturally gigantic boobs (you want to pat him comfortingly on the head and say, “Yes, yes, you’re terrified of female sexuality, we understand …”), most of the depictions are pretty ugly.  The one exception is the painting that appears on the Wikipedia page (right), in which he appears almost comforting.

Is he an angel?  Is he a demon?  Who knows?  I’d ask Damien, but see excuses for why I can’t (previous entries) and “ditto”.

Sekhmet  is credited with some of the same qualities of Damien’s “give him/her the emotions and states of mind we’ve outgrown”.  I hope “outgrown” means the same thing as, “the emotions and states of mind that we’ve realized are killing us”.  Anger.  Rage.  Resentment.  Those sorts of things.  Either he had a lot more to be angry about, or perhaps Damien just used a more patient and “understanding-sounding” way of wording the same sentiments.

I’m not as nice as he is.  I know I have an issue with rage, and it’s surfacing more and more lately.  Hence the intense anger directed at, for example, the stupid women of North Andover, who shove shopping carts at or maliciously sneeze on people.  Or, place their need to maniacally babble away on their cell phones while they’re driving high above the lives of others.  Maybe I should have said, hence the anger directed at stupid women in general.  I have basically zero tolerance for them.  Men overlook women’s evil largely because … well, where women are concerned, men are thinking with every other body part they have except their brains.  Women generally don’t have that distraction where other women are concerned.

So, as part of the “burning up those little scraps of paper” step in finding a soul mate – and I still haven’t done it yet - I knew I had to burn up the rage issue.  But there was a part of me that felt it was a larger problem than something that could disappear with a “burning a small piece of paper” ceremony, particularly because the rage rarely turned outward, except on paper or in journals and blogs; in reality, it always turned inward.  And I’d been trying to think of a way of learning how to banish it from myself, my psyche, my brain, my emotions.  I knew it wasn’t going to be easy; it was too big a part of me, and I knew it was causing me serious damage.

THERE ARE NO COINCIDENCES.  I know.  I encountered Sekhmet and Damien’s mention of Azrael at the same time.  I don’t know why I found Sekhmet so intriguing, other than:  I was meant to find her intriguing, which almost felt like a calling of sorts. 

I knew a few things about Sekhmet.  I knew she was considered quite dangerous to invoke, and didn’t, as they say, suffer fools gladly.  This I actually liked about her, as I was normally opposed to and disgusted by “girly” nonsense anyway.  That is probably the best benchmark I have for people who claim to be “channelers”.  If any deity claims to be addressing me, and starts out the speech with, “My beloved child” and starts throwing out “thou”s, “thee’s” and “thys”, or something equally as ridiculous, I’ll get up and walk out.  Any deity worth his or her salt knows better than to address me like that and wouldn’t do it.  So needless to say, very few deities have addressed me at psychic fairs, let’s put it that way.  I can’t imagine for a second that Sekhmet would do such a thing so I’m operating on something I swore I would never employ:  a tablespoon of faith..  That’s all though.

From what I’ve heard, Sekhmet never answered questions you already knew the answer to, or did things for you that you could do for yourself, and I knew that even the heavily Islamic contemporary Egyptians recognized her as one of the few deities who still inhabited a ‘living statue’ – I vaguely recall reading about two nutball Egyptian Muslim fundamentalists who broke her statue in three pieces in an attempt to banish her altogether – it didn’t work. 

The thought that she might seek retribution for the damage terrified the local residents to such an extent that they hurriedly reconstructed her and punished the vandals severely – Muslim or not.  Hank Wesselman recorded an astounding encounter with the living Sekhmet in Karnak as well.  If there was one deity who understood a woman’s rage and could transform it, it was Sekhmet.

According to the White Moon Gallery, “It is widely believed that Sekhmet herself is a much more ancient deity, and in fact, Sekhmet is much older than Ra. It is told that she “came to Egypt from a place unknown and a time unrecorded” (Masters) as shown by some of her titles:

Lady of the Place at the Beginning of Time

One Who Was Before the Gods Were

Mother of All the Gods

As far as titles go, she actually has something like 100 titles and probably more.  She is, I believe, the only Egyptian goddess with a temple in the Americas, located in the Nevada Desert, which she inhabits.  She is so alive and visible she is loathed by the United States Air Force which buzz her from a local base regularly, so you know there has to be something good about her, for the obsessively pro-Christian, militaristic U.S. Air Force to hate her so much.  More’s the pity none of them can differentiate between the ancient Egyptians who had a huge impact on their own spiritual and cultural development (although they’re too stupid to admit it), and the present day Egyptian Muslims they feel they have to hate.  Same way the Arkansas Baptist Church Ladies hated Damien, so you know there’s something right about him, too.  Besides, Sekhmet has Sagittarius connections.  One guess what Damien’s birth sign is. 

If you read his description of his wife from his autobiography, his connection of sexuality with feline characteristics is pure Sekhmet, as connected as she is with sexuality and raw, untamed kundalini energy.  She may have her claws in him too, even if he doesn’t know it.  Or maybe he does and just never mentioned it.

There’s that sexual power again.  No wonder the Christians hate her.

http://www.sekhmettemple.com/

“If it stands in the way of your developing a closer relationship with the Divine …”  I think that’s the direction I’m supposed to be going, and I suspect Sekhmet is about to pick me up in her razor sharp teeth by the scruff of the neck and take me there.  And she isn’t going to tolerate any foot dragging or whining, either.  The dream space (see previous entry) was created for that purpose, and my willingness to seriously try to meditate is another part.  As always, Damien was “Mr. Signpost”, turning me in that direction, so that I could suddenly find myself looking into the stern eyes of a lioness-goddess, off in a new bend in the road. 

Sacred Source – which, I have to say, I’d never heard of until now -  agreed to send me a sistrum, which is an ancient Egyptian musical instrument, and a replica (I’m guessing N-scale, but I’m bad at estimating scales, even when I’m looking at model railroads) of the Karnak statue of Sekhmet, which is even awesome to look at in photos.  I should clarify that they’re not sending me an actual ancient Egyptian musical instrument; they’re sending me a replica of that, too.  I had to do another You-Tube video search to learn how they’re played and the rhythms they used.

Bill Miller solemnly pushes me forward with “Never Too Far” from his Spirit Rain cd, while I next research Sekhmet oil.  I love Bill Miller – well, not romantically – he’s just a phenomenal musician – slash - singer - slash - songwriter and I could listen to him all day.  He’s followed by Mario Frangoulis, whose “Hijo de la Luna” always makes me tear up when he gets to that last stanza.

Sekhmet Oil.  I realize I’m kind of throwing myself off a spiritual cliff, here … I know I need her help but am not sure how to ask for it.  Respect.  Anointing her when she arrives – the Egyptian “opening the mouth” ceremony … greeting her with respect at the very least.  Creating an elementary shrine of sorts.  I’m thinking, “Hopefully, she’d appreciate that much more than the Air Force disrespectfully buzzing her in Nevada.”  Will she elect to inhabit her statue in its newly created shrine in Massachusetts, the way she does in Karnak and Nevada?  ?  Well, time will tell.

I’m also thinking that someone ought to tell the Air Force pilots the story of what she did, according to Egyptian history, the LAST time she expressed her disapproval at the disrespect shown to deities, like herself.  Read the myth and you suspect immediately that this is the earlier version of the back-story for Noah’s flood:  a deity becoming so angry with human beings he decides to wipe them off the planet.  In Egypt it was Ra, who sent Sekhmet.  Judeo-Christians, with their contempt for women, rewrote the story to eliminate a feminine role;  they talk about Yahweh sending a flood to wipe humanity off the planet when they got rude and disrespectful.

In the Egyptian version, Ra sent Sekhmet who did her job so well Ra had to save humanity from her blood lust, which was considerable.  Like I said, she doesn’t suffer fools gladly.  And the U.S. Air Force is sticking their very foolish toes way over the line as far as that goes.  I’d back away from the Air Force, if I were you, to avoid getting splattered with the fallout, when she finally loses her temper at them in a big way.  All of the weapons and planes in the world won’t do them a bit of good when that happens.

Understand I have no problem with the U.S. Air Force in general; just with their habit of disrespecting deities of others.

But back to the Oil.  I flip through Bast and Sehkmet:  Eyes of Ra (Constantine and Coquio) and find the recipe. 

2 drops frankincense oil

2 drops orange or sweet orange oil

2 drops sandalwood oil

2 drops rosemary oil

Hmm.  Love the visual image of me trying to measure “drops” without an eyedropper.  Well, THAT has “one big oily mess” written all over it.  What do you say I go looking for an eyedropper and a bottle?  I discover I have all the ingredients except for the sandalwood oil.  See?  I knew there was a reason I had frankincense oil, which I had picked up at a Whole Foods out of curiosity and mentioned, in a previous entry somewhere.

Normandi Ellis believes that the rage of Sekhmet is a manifestation of “thwarted energy.” Because women are taught to repress anger and turn it inwards, it builds up – and eventually, that energy has to be released. Sekhmet is transformative power, and we can use her energy in a positive way by learning how to release and express it appropriately.

Normandi Ellis, Feasts of Light: Celebrations of the Seasons of Life

Sekhmet:

“Ruler of the desert, Blazing eye of the sun” (lyrics from “Om Sekhmet”)