I wonder if I’m the only person who remembers making mixed bean soup in the days before you could buy the "Hurst HamBeens 15-Bean Soup" mix in the grocery store. Or maybe you could buy it when I was growing up; we just never did. Actually, I’m not even that old, but I never recall my mother using a "mixed bean" mix. We just made it whenever we had a collection of bean package dregs and then combined them, along with other types of non-dried beans, like green beans, french green beans, yellow wax (waxed?) beans, etc. The we tossed in a chopped onion, leftover ham, seasonings, and abracadabra! Soup!
There usually ended up being anywhere from 5 to 10 types of beans in the bowl, and it was always something we slurped on in fall or winter, never the high heat of summer. I suddenly had a longing for hot peppery bean soup, so here I am, slurping on some, with some barley thrown in for giggles. Very comforting, earthy sort of meal. As I said, I’m on vacation all this week, so I’m not at all worried about any after-effects of 15 types of beans. And of course, I had no dregs, so had to cheat and substitute the bean mix. Mom usually made cornbread along with it; I’m too lazy to do that.
But because of the vacation, this is another day of writing lists, headed by, "DO THIS OR YOU’LL REGRET IT UNTIL THE END OF TIME!", because I have spent the last three months completely unable to get myself motivated to do anything. Friday was the first Friday the 13th since Jim’s death on Friday the 13th in April. I’m going to try to talk to him through someone.
I don’t trust my own intuition as far as Jim is concerned; my guilt and self-loathing is too bound up in his death. The only thing I heard him say after he died came right on the heels of his death – possibly the day after that, when we were at the mall in Yorktown Heights, and Lauren was debating whether or not to buy new shoes for the memorial: "NO NEW SHOES!" He said it so loudly in my ear that I nearly jumped ten feet in the air. He meant: don’t get dressed up for me; there is absolutely no need to go to all that trouble and waste the money. It was such a "Jim" thing to say I didn’t even question it when I heard it. Well, that, and the fact that he yelled it. I haven’t heard him since, though.
The idea of going to Salem close to Halloween in October for a reading was shot to splinters when I had lunch at Bertucci’s with friends yesterday; one of them lives in Salem. I asked her about Salem during the month of October and she rolled her eyes. She had no issues with the spiritual purpose; she did have issues with the traffic.
"Don’t do it!", she told me, "It’s so crowded, it takes me 45 minutes just to drive around my block!" Apparently, all of the Salem residents grow to despise the month of October, when they’re invaded by people from all over the world celebrating witches and witchiness. Instead I found someone in Andover who does it. I’ll be seeing her on Thursday. And am I relieved I don’t have to go to Salem? Do you even have to ask?
I’ll try anyone once. I would award the last woman 3.3333 out of 10 stars for her reading: out of the three accurate bulls-eyes she tossed out (my grandmother, Damien and Sekhmet), I’d say that only my grandmother was fully accurate. Sekhmet probably was meant for me, but delivered to the wrong person, and why she couldn’t figure out who Damien was – someone I was learning a great deal from, although someone I’d never met and was only familiar with through his writings – I still argue that it sent the accuracy of the reading flying off kilter, despite the bulls-eyes on the Boston Red Sox, horoscope sign and health issues, as there was no way to deliver the message at the time, especially to someone I didn’t know, and certainly no way to verify the accuracy of the message. Maybe I’m being too hard on her, I don’t know.
But it bothered me to such a degree that I picked someone else. This new woman apparently uses the tarot, psychometry and help from the Archangel Michael.
I did have a vague recollection of Damien mentioning the Archangel Michael, once upon a time, although I had to dig around to find the context. It turns out he mentioned Michael several times. My favorite was:
May 16, 2010
"My daily meditation routine is focused on the suit of wands right now. That's the section of the tarot which the archangel Michael rules over. It represents will power, ambition, creativity, fire, and the season of summer."
So – we are in the midst of the season of summer – also ruled by Sekhmet, so I feel supported by powerful energy on all sides. The psychometry gave me pause, until I remembered – I still have a few of Jim’s unopened beer cans in my refrigerator. I haven’t touched them, and he’s the last person who did. I haven’t been able to pluck up the courage to get rid of them, and wonder if you can pick up anything from cold beer cans?
I will tell you one thing about Michael, though: Doreen Virtue was fairly specific about knowing whether or not you’re actually hearing his voice as opposed to someone else’s:
"Of all the angels, Michael has the loudest and clearest voice. He’s definitely the easier Divine messenger to hear. He also has a distinctively blunt speaking style. He gets right to the point, but always with love and a sense of humor.
In a crisis, his pitch and tone are similar to a surgeon demanding a scalpel from a nurse. He’s not trying to be bossy or bark orders at us; rather, he just wants to get our attention and put us into action mode. The archangel always sounds loving and compassionate while he’s commanding us to take lifesaving action.
If Michael needs to get our attention in a hurry, his voice booms with unmistakable clarity. Yet, he can also be soft-spoken when it’s called for."http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Angels/2008/12/8-Ways-to-Recognize-Archangel-Michael.aspx?p=2#ixzz20m1WKH8r
Which I like. I don’t give a crap about the "love" part, particularly, but the sense of humor would reach me. The minute someone starts cooing at me, I’ll get up and walk out because I know they’re "channeling" no one but themselves and their own goofy idea of what an angel supposedly sounds like. Any deity or higher being worth his or her salt would know better than to get all girly-girly-frou-frou on me. You’re reading someone who was raised by two engineers: my mother was an aerospace engineer and my father an industrial engineer. I can’t recall either one of them coo-cooing at me like goofballs, and I never once doubted their love. A "blunt speaking style" would resonate with me completely.
(And I’ll bet I was the only young teen who was given "the talk" by her mother with a matter-of-fact, biological explanation, using all of the scientific terms for body parts and chemical analysis of the reasons for and results of orgasms. My mother was the smartest woman I know.)
Another semi-coincidence: one of the latter sonnets in the cycle was about the blue and indigo colors surrounding Michael.
Concentration
Three months pass; air stops, sun glares at cicada speech.
I turn my head. He listens as she serenades
him, friends called him away, but, his focus unswayed,
he listens as her lips move and slips out of reach.
Grasses browned, faces oily, rainbows sagging, leached
of their jewels. On his face, his lips move though his gaze,
enraptured, never moves, but not watching her face
blushing at his sudden awareness, this young peach.
O! To be the object of such fine scrutiny,
when Michael’s purple and indigo lights the room,
Protecting the unwise with a sword and a tune,
who watched the detonation of the family
and shook his head sadly, although it was not soon
enough to forestall her dull animosity.
©Snake’s Trail, 2012
Meanwhile, Damien continues to freak me out ... although, at this point, it’s less "freak out" and more, "again with the coincidences!", so okay, I’m no longer THAT freaked out ... just a little freaked out ... a month ago, on 18 June, I was being grumpy and brought up alchemy.
So apparently, not only am I a poor excuse for a witch (who flies into trees on her broomstick), I'm in absolutely no danger of turning myself into a skilled alchemist either, as far as being able to make sense of grimoires goes. Too bad, too: I could really use the gold.
And here’s Damien:
Alchemy is about change, destruction & creation. Called the "spagyric art," from Greek words meaning "to tear apart" & "to bring together".
The other coincidence – other than the fact I mentioned it – is that any time he shows up in a tarot reading, he’s always the Magus – in other words, an alchemist.
Next coincidence: was glancing at the Witches Book of Days recently – 2 days ago, actually. It read, "In Asia we celebrate O’Ban, similar to Samhain or Halloween. Trick or treat yourself."
Error #1: it’s not O’Ban, it’s Obon or just Bon, an Asian festival honoring one’s ancestors, and has nothing to do with tricking or treating. Error #2: Obon is in August, not on July 14.
The Real Witches Year wants me to go outside in the high heat, lay down on the ground and absorb sensations. Sure, if by "sensations" she means going into anaphylactic shock from sun stroke and a million and one mosquito bites.
The Pagan Book of Days is actually useful, mentioning that the runic half-month of Ur ("primal strength") begins today, and adding, "it is a good time for beginnings, for this rune is sacred to the Norn Urda, the primal foundation of things, and to the active principle in the shape of Thor, the hammer-wielding thunder god."
I do know that one of the concepts of Ur is "shaping and forcing fortunate circumstances creatively through will and inspiration", which sounds like a waxing moon sort of thing – right now the moon is a waning crescent, so this gives me a little time to prepare a spell I can finally record – keep track of – in my daybook, which is slowly turning into something of a Book of Shadows.
I hadn’t even posted that yet, when Damien (today) tweeted:
"The Dark Moon is this week. On Thursday. Those are the nights that are good for banishing unwanted energy. The ancient Greeks said the Dark Moon is embodied by Hecate, queen of the night. So what gifts does the dark moon like? Red wine. The darker, the better. Leave it beneath the night sky for her ... and ask her to remove any obstacles that may stand between you and happiness."
(After giving that a moment’s thought). I’d need about 100 dark moons to get rid of MY obstacles, but on the other hand, Thursday is the day of the meeting with the tarot-psychometry-Michael the Archangel lady.
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