Messages in Water, More Moments in the Quantum Sea and I Miss a Dinner with Piero Barone

Used my “trigger” to briefly transfer consciousness again while I sat down beside my beloved Dogwood outside the office yesterday morning; the result was so pleasurable I almost didn’t make it into the office – I could have sat there all day.  So busy inside of her!  I heard a slow, rhythmic and deep whooshing and gurgling and felt warmth and sparkling movement all around me (cells, I think); and what a sensation of belonging, of oneness and of joy!  Even in her wintery and leafless dormant state, she is so full of radiance inside.  Truly, truly amazing to experience.  Thanks to her, I was so cheerful and happy when I walked into the office, I swear that my co-workers were left wondering what moonshine cocktail I had whipped up for breakfast.

Meanwhile, at home, I’m reading with no small amount of astonishment Masaru Emoto’s The Hidden Messages in Water.  I had no idea these studies had been conducted!  For those unfamiliar:  Emoto is a Japanese scientist, whose area of expertise is water.  Emoto’s study was as simple as it was mind-boggling:  he photographed the ice crystals formed by water from different sources – and water exposed to various vibrations and types of light.

Then, he tried exposing water to spoken words, thoughts, different types of music and sounds and then looked at their ice crystals … and the results were staggering.  What he discovered was that water is alive and capable of aligning itself with the consciousness of human beings – which is to say, in so many words, that that glass of water most people pay absolutely no attention to, other than as a sure-fire method of quenching thirst, is capable of loving you.  I’m telling you, I will never look at water the same way again after this book.  It was truly a consciousness-altering read.  In fact, I immediately began to sing songs and gratitude to my glasses of water before I drank them!  It was apparently on the New York Times Best Seller list for a while, too.

The book had such an impact on me I immediately considered methods of water collection for my new home – to make certain I was watering indoor plants with rain water and not fluorinated water – and because, unlike some poor homeowners out west, New Hampshire has no restrictions against collecting rainwater on your own property.  I also remembered that the home inspection had turned up an unused but possibly serviceable well on the property … which might be worthwhile investigating further.

The next object I’m going to try for my visualization homework is a container of water!  (I know, I’ve lost my marbles.  Go ahead, you can say it.  But really, read the book before you judge!)

Meanwhile, on the train, I had begun to re-read Christopher Penczak’s The Plant Spirit Familiar.  He had written of apprenticing to a (for want of a better term) green witch who had taught him valuable information on the recognition of, planting, gathering of herbs and flowers to use in potions, tinctures and other magickal mixtures.  Since he’s from the Massachusetts-New Hampshire area, I wondered who he was referring to.

I can tell you at least one challenge I’m having to face this lifetime:  learning to react to the loss of critically important things without panicking.  Example:  we just got a snowstorm Saturday.  I’m estimating 6-7 inches.  Went outside on Sunday to dig out my car in preparation for today.  So I have my set of car/house in my gloved hand as I manually wiped off the back window and trunk top so that I could open the trunk and get the shovel out.  When I finished, I no longer had the keys and had forgotten that I had been holding them.  I  just know I had no keys.

I had already used them to open the drivers’ side door, so my first search was in the front seat of the car.  Not in the steering column, not in the passenger side seat.  I had no holes in my pockets.  I looked under the seat, between the seats, behind the seats.  Nothing.  I got out and walked behind the car, thinking I had dropped them.  Nothing.  It was as though they had vanished into the ether.  House keys.  Apartment keys.  Car keys.  Two sets of mailbox keys.  On a Sunday, with no way to get back into my apartment where I actually did have a spare car key.  I could feel myself start to panic.  WTF???

Like everyone else, I started calling for St. Anthony.  I have no idea, now that I think of it, how St. Anthony got associated with lost things, but he did, so he’s the first spirit you call on*.  I got out of the car again and started kicking away the snow near the driver’s side door, thinking I’d dropped them.  I couldn’t figure out how I could have dropped them without hearing them fall – they should have jangled when they fell and I’d heard nothing.

Finally – after a good 10 minutes of bewilderment, confusion and the start of a panic mode, I remembered my “pulling things from the Quantum Sea” success I mentioned in a previous post.

I got back in the car, sat very still for a few moments and then, using the trigger, sent myself into a light meditative state and visualized reaching into the Quantum Sea and retrieving my keys.  Then I spoke to the keys directly, asking them to make a sound that I could hear.

Then I walked slowly around the car, brushing aside snow with my foot as I went.  Near my rear right tire, I kicked at a mound of snow and – sure enough – heard a jingle.  The thing that was weird about this area of snow was that it hadn’t been touched before.  The area was still white and flat and looked for all the world like no one had moved it, shoveled it, or buried snow from elsewhere on top of it.  There was no indentation in the surface to indicate that something had fallen into it.  In fact, just before I brushed it aside with my foot, I distinctly thought, “This snow is untouched, but I’ll try it anyway.”  That’s when I heard the jingle.

How an entire set of keys on a key ring fell into this untouched snow without making a mark or a sound seemed almost ... well, magickal.  When I described the incident to my long-time bus companions the next morning (leaving out the part about the Quantum Sea), one of them – a physicist - used the exact same word:  “sounds like magic.”  Which is what made me think that the incident was part of a learning episode.  I still experienced a few minutes of upset before trying the Quantum Sea, so I suspect I still need to learn to go for the Quantum Sea immediately, rather than later.  But it was a memorable experience.

*Note:  I went and looked it up.  Apparently a novitiate in St. Anthony’s order stole his psalter and left the monastery.  Anthony initiated an intense prayer session asking it be returned, and the novitiate suddenly turned around, returned to the monastery and returned it to him.  Hence Anthony’s association with the finder of lost or stolen things.

L’uno e solo was in Boston not all that long ago – apparently, they had a “Meet & Greet” at Fogo De Chao, a Boston restaurant.  Makes you wonder why you turned over your e-mail address to their record company’s official site, if they never use it to let you know that, oh, just as an offhand example, Piero Barone was seven blocks away and you could have had dinner with him!!   Small, unimportant things like that. Arrggghhh!   Grrrrrrr ... ayieeeeeeeee! 

Just breathe, girl.  Calm down.  BREATHE.  Calm down.  Inhale.  Exhale.  Inhale.  Exhale.  Okay, I’ve lost any sense of calm I once had.  Pardon me for a moment while I tell his record company – or whoever runs their web site and asked for my e-mail address which raised false expectations of actually being notified about anything -  what I think of them.

Thanksgiving ... an Overabundance of Earbuds ... and I Merge with a Rock

Ahhh ... a four-and-a-half day weekend … and this time I expect to get my living quarters at least minimally out of the state of packing chaos it’s in, right at the moment.  It seems so much easier to merely make it through the day if I don’t need to pick my way over and around boxes of things.   Arrendersi mai!  Or as they say elsewhere ... like in Italy ... "Never surrender!"

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com

/2011/11/24/marty-two-bulls-first-thanksgiving

Thanksgiving ... or as the original hosts call it, “No Generous Act of Hospitality Goes Unpunished Day” ... has arrived.

I must confess, over the years, as I’ve moved from one place to the other, I have never really had the opportunity to sort through all of my possessions and decide which ones were worth keeping.  Usually, packing is done at high speed, tossing things into boxes and crates for a frenetic one-day move with the promise that I’ll sort through things as I unpack – which of course I never do, so the collection just builds up.  This is the first time I have taken this long to pack things slowly and carefully.

It’s appalling how much stuff one accumulates without even being aware of it, sometimes duplicates and triplicates of things because you can’t find things when you need them, and end up buying them again.  There are also things I’d completely forgotten that I had, and this is the moment when you think, “I need to pay more attention to the things I accumulate.”  For example, somehow I had accumulated something like 20 separate ear buds ... which is all the more astonishing considering the fact that I never use ear buds – they end up hurting, because (supposedly) my ear canal is smaller than normal.  I always use the over the head “can” earphones – so why do I have 20 ear buds?

And yet, you don’t want to fill up landfills with ridiculous amounts of garbage, either.  I was browsing online for “creative things to do with ear buds”, until I realized that the items I know as Q-tips are now known as “ear buds”!   Ahh, the things you learn trying not to toss the “ear buds” that you stick in your ears to listen to music.  I didn’t want to devote too much time to craft researching so ... out they went.

I also seem to have more electrical cords, computer cords, phone cords, connective cords, printer cords, extension cords, all with various configurations of cord endings ... I’ve seen them called “female” endings and “male endings”, depending on whether they have the hole or the pin ... tucked away, out of use.  I have no idea what components each is meant to connect, and yet I still hesitate to toss them, merely out of a vague sense of “I might need it later.”  I have three plastic boxes filled with them.

As I toss things – lots of things – it really does make me feel somewhat “lighter”, less encumbered and less tied to things I don’t need and will never use.

Meanwhile, the cooking-baking-roasting-mashing extravaganza begins.  I treated myself to some brandy to make the morning more relaxing, and this is another happy circumstance of packing – I had put my parents’ cut glass collection that I remembered growing up with in a cabinet and (again) forgot to use them.  As I pulled them out to wrap in paper and put carefully into a “FRAGILE!  DROP THIS AT YOUR PERIL!” moving box, I have been washing the glasses and decided this was perfect for a morning brandy.  It’s not a brandy snifter (haven’t washed those yet), but it hasn’t detracted from the taste as far as I can tell.  Delicious.  One of the many uses I have devised for the enormous entry room is a home bar in one corner.  I have always wanted to have one of those.

(Completely irrelevant and irreverent observation:  has anyone noticed how much a muddler looks like a sex toy?)  (Yes, I know, you’ll never be able to drink a mojito again after that.  Sorry!)

I spent the day after the giving of thanks day in Seabrook, getting the place measured and picking out bathroom faucets, shower marble tiles, kitchen sinks and garbage disposals.  I will probably be actually moving sometime in January.  I was immediately attracted to two marble tiles that – in my mind’s eye – said “The Universe”.  I’ve never had a bathroom in these colors before; the sales lady thought I was nuts initially, but then came around the more she looked at them.  The shower will be in the marble on the left; the two vanities topped with the marble on the right.  The floor is a groutable linoleum that looks like white marble with soft black veins in it.  All of the fixtures are elegant oil-rubbed bronze.  Personally, I think it’s going to be the most awesome bathroom ever, but then, I tend to like drama.  Only problem:  all my towels are blue.  I think it’s time to buy a few new ones and use the blue towels at the beach.


But back to business.  Lunar phase today is Waning Crescent.  The current moon phase is from 2013-11-25 19:30 to 2013-12-03 00:22.  The moon is in the zodiac sign of Libra.  Coincidentally, Venus rules both Taurus and Libra.  And even more coincidentally, the astrological sign of Cancer is ruled by the Moon.  Three guesses who my all-time favorite tenor born under the sign of Cancer (June 24th) might be.

Second transference of consciousness attempt:  candle:  Shooting Star Scent Beads.  Incense:  Scented Garden – Ocean.  Object:  rock.  Gneiss, I think?  Black and white at any rate, and it reminded me the Fordham Gneiss, 1.1 billion years old, back home in New York.  The same black/grey and white particles in it in any event.  This effort was much more successful.  Time:  about 1:30-2 PM.  Now this rock had some history to it.  I acquired it about two years ago.  Might have even mentioned it when I did.  (Sunday, December 11 – wow, closer to the 2-year mark than I knew!)  This was the rock given to me by my favorite Dogwood (or, really, my only Dogwood) after she’d confiscated it from two idiot boys throwing it at squirrels and birds (luckily for the aforementioned, they missed).  She moved it into my path with the request that I pick it up and remove it from the area lest any more boys get stupid ideas.  I did, and I’ve had it ever since.

Hard to separate the sensations.  I felt we were moving back in time together, this rock and I.  I did get a brief glimpse of the rabbit incident, which offended not only the Dogwood, but apparently had disturbed the rock as well.  The reason was a little strange:  I went through such a powerful transformation event with this rock, way down deep in the earth, and I sensed that it felt party to an overwhelming sense of power; a vital part of the Earth’s transformation; and the power behind its creation was so overwhelming I couldn’t find a comparison.  But the sensation was something akin to, “I was made from forces of incredible power, and am offended that, now at earth’s surface, I was put to such a use!”  Actually, that’s more my interpretation of the sensation.  But I did hear roars and heavy objects cracking and exploding under incredible strain, all of which left me in awe of its creation and birth.  So, it envisioned itself as something born out of the earth’s power, that I should see as as an object of veneration – and not something out of a chapter from “Hey, Beavis, let’s find sometin’ to chuck at a squeerel.  Yuck, yuck!”

Shifting My Conciousness, Piero Gets Stage-Jumped and I Try to Embroider a Sigil

I’m probably going to appreciate this even more later on when I’m in my new home, but I’m in the newly learned process of removing rust from metal, and corroded battery acid from battery heads.  Wow, who knew vinegar and aluminum foil were so versatile?  Deep cleaning the apartment carpets; cleaning out the box fans to dry the carpets after deep cleaning them; struggling with the world’s smallest screws to attach the plastic covers [“ouch!”] ... this has been one of those days I wasn’t looking forward to, but needed before the eventual move, to avoid not getting a deposit returned.

While I am not a big fan of being cold, the real blessing of this season is the variety of rib-sticking hot soups that I can whip up.  Today I’m slurping down a big bowl of chopped kale, shelled edamame, corn, peas with matzo balls ... love those things – you almost have to, if you’re a New Yorker – spiced with lemon pepper.

The other thing I did:  ordered gold and silver embroidery floss.  And why would I do that, you ask?  Sigil!!!  I decided to embroider the sigil of one of Solomon’s spirits (I refuse to call them “demons”.  Absolutely refuse.  Besides this particular guy does not have any negative behavior associated with him that would suggest he is anything other than a spirit.  He just had the label hung around his neck for having sex with The Unclean.  Which is to say:  women.)  What I cannot figure out is why we jump up and down and squeal about the way, say, Saudis treat their women, but then pass along Middle Eastern beliefs about women through religious beliefs without blinking.

In any event, I recall the suggestion that creativity is one way of focusing intent, so I decided to embroider his sigil on red linen.  Right now I’m just practicing.  Next step:  to work the bugs out of my embroidery skills and start the real thing.  I actually had to go onto YouTube to remind myself how to separate the strands of floss without making a tangled mess of everything.

Third WC-1 class came and went; I’m pleased to say that I  could report that at least half of the affirmations worked marvelously:  “My debit card is in my apartment and easily retrievable”.  (True, it was.)  “I will draw the flash drive intact out of the Quantum Sea.”  (True, and I’m working on it now.)  Also retrieved after affirmations:  a set of keys I desperately needed, a Christopher Penczak cd collection which I was going to use for this month’s homework assignment, my gloves.  Seriously, the guy is so good at guided meditations, I’m half afraid I’ll just hear his voice saying, “Hello!” and will slide into a deep trance without thinking.  Heh! 

I’ll add the reminder that I am in the midst of packing; it’s a lot easier to lose things in a sea of boxes than it is when you have places to put things that are no longer there.  I swear, I’ve been losing something important every day, lately, and was getting more and more frustrated about it.  As of this moment, however, I have nothing that I need to raise an affirmation to locate.  Yay!

Summary:  the ones that worked are the incidents where I lost or misplaced vitally important things – less visible are the ones where I affirmed a change within myself:  I am prosperous.  I am loved.  Those sorts of things.

“Out of the Quantum wha …. ?”

The Quantum Sea.  This is one of William H. Keith’s (and also my, coincidentally) favorite phrases for the ether of creativity … maybe that’s the wrong word.  Physicists call it the ZPF, or “Zero Point Field”;  Keith describes it beautifully as the Quantum Sea; described in its most elementary form as a sea of energy particles which wink in and out of existence.  My favorite visualization is the one where I create a detailed visual image of something I need (in this case, the items I misplaced), and visualize myself pulling it out of a sea of frothy energy light bubbles.  And as I said, so far it has worked ... on the lost items.

Now we are learning how to project our consciousness (consciousness-es?) into objects (preferably natural ones:  stones, feathers, pinecones, those sorts of things) and record the results.  Required information:  date, moon phase, candle, incense, time of day, results.  Which means my hand-written journal has stuff like this in it:

22 November 2013 Friday:  Waning Gibbous moon in Cancer.  “Moon On Their Wings” Yankee Candle jar.  Venus incense cone.  The current moon phase is from 2013-11-17 15:16 to 2013-11-25 19:30.  Guided meditation, Penczak, “Mental Projection”.  Item to transfer to:  citrine heart.  Had a profound case of the “intense itches”, lost all concentration.

“Intense itches” is actually more painful than it sounds – as the nerves in my lower legs do whatever it is they’re supposed to be doing, it sometimes feels like someone is poking me with straight pins in my legs and feet.  So sometimes guided meditations work; other times they don’t.

[Which shows you how talented I am at projecting my consciousness, right off the bat].

I received an e-mail this morning from the school, asking for our WC-1 class members to participate (which is to say:  take on a performance role) in a December Child of Light Yule ritual which I’ve never attended before.  After some thought, I agreed, although I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing, and I’m not entirely sure how they interpret the “Child of Light”.  I know Yule developed out of the Roman Saturnalia, and I know that christians promptly stole the entire celebration to make their entirely invented “birthday” of Jesus out of it (his reaction from the hereafter when they did it:  “Really?  You had to LIE to get people to pay attention to you?”), but that’s all I know. 

In any event, supposedly we’ll have one rehearsal, and then go live on some Saturday night in December.  This should be interesting.  Or not, if I fall asleep standing up in the middle of it, which there’s a good chance I’ll do.

I have shared quite a number of YouTube videos in this blog ... so you can imagine my ongoing state of rage and despair when Google literally demolished YouTube by forcing everyone who wanted to comment on videos to create a Google+ Account – despite the fact that actually having a Google account is an unmitigated nightmare.  They have lost my links and passwords so many times it is ridiculous.  And now they’ve screwed up YouTube.  I’ve lost my history, my favorites, the name everyone knows me by, everything.

Meanwhile, you might find this entertaining - or perhaps more than Ignazio, Piero and Gianluca did, when they were stage-jumped in Argentina.  Wait until the very end of the song; three very crazed fans jump the stage from the left side of the video screen and jump on top of three very surprised young men from Italy.  What is amazing:  only a few short years ago, no one knew who they were.  And now?  They seem to have achieved a rarefied form of celebrity where they are literally driving teenage girls crazy.  Enjoy.


And now ... back to Consciousness Transference Attempt #2!

More on "Man-Beast Amulets"

Continuing from my previous entry on “Man-Beast amulets”:  I doubt very much that the Sumerians would have depicted Inanna using amulets with a Sphinx on it – I am not sure of the Sumerian-Egyptian comparative timelines to know far apart the Sphinx and the recorded love story in Sumerian hieroglyphics are – or even if they ARE “far apart”.

However, since I have no idea what Inanna’s amulets looked like, if I need to make a good faith effort to design a contemporary amulet that still dives deeply into history, you can’t do better than the Sphinx.  Particularly as there are so many magickal correspondences attached to the Sphinx.

“Eliphas Levi here offers the Four Powers as the words of the Magus and casually links them with the Sphinx. He goes on in the same chapter to link the Four Powers of the Sphinx with the four Elements and the four Kerubic Signs of the zodiac:

“You are called to be king of air, water, earth and fire; but to reign over these four living creatures of symbolism, it is necessary to conquer and enchain them. He who aspires to be a sage and to know the Great Enigma of Nature must be the heir and despoiler of the sphinx: his the human head, in order to possess speech; his the eagle’s wings, in order to scale the heights; his the bull’s flanks, in order to furrow the depths; his the lion’s talons, to make a way on the right and the left, before and behind.”
Source:  http://hermetic.com/osiris/onthepowersofthesphinx1.htm

Okay, so I missed the eagle in my last entry.  Human, eagle, lion, bull.  There’s a “Man-Beast” if I ever saw one!  I will say that Levi seems a tad “patriarchal” in this paragraph, enthusing about “conquering” and “enchaining” things.  I’d rather seduce things, or maybe that’s just me.

I also should have added an explanation of that “cylinder seal” she held in her hand:

“A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch in length, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally wet clay. Cylinder seals were invented around 3500 BC in the Near East, at the contemporary sites of Susa in south-western Iran and Uruk in southern Mesopotamia. They are linked to the invention of the latter’s cuneiform writing on clay tablets.  They were used as an administrative tool, a form of signature, as well as jewelry and as magical amulets; later versions would employ notations with Mesopotamian cuneiform. In later periods, they were used to notarize or attest to multiple impressions of clay documents. Graves and other sites housing precious items such as gold, silver, beads, and gemstones often included one or two cylinder seals, as honorific grave goods.”

Now here is an interesting coincidence.  The ancient city of Susa, which “appears in the very earliest Sumerian records”, is  “one of the places obedient to Inanna, patron deity of Uruk, in Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta .” (Wikipedia)  Susa is located in present day Iran.  An ancient cylinder seal was unearthed in Susa.  In an article comparing mankind’s search for the elixir of life to the history of dragon mythology and folklore (“the most venerable symbol employed in ornamental art and the favorite and most highly decorative motif in artistic design"), author G. Elliott Smith captured early depictions of dragons on cylinders found in Susa (founded in 4200 BCE), with many similarities to the Great Sphinx which is commonly believed to have been constructed later, 2558–2532 BCE.  Looking at the general timeline:

4200 BCE: Susa is founded in western Persia
4700-2900 BCE dragon motifs found along the Yellow River in China from this period
3000 BCE - Kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt unite. Successive dynasties witness flourishing trade, prosperity and the development of great cultural traditions. Writing, including hieroglyphics, is used as an instrument of state.
2558–2532 BCE - Construction of The Great Sphinx
2500 BCE - Construction of the pyramids
2018 BCE - the Sumerian empire disintegrates

... it appears that, of the two/three empires,  the dragon motif originated first in Sumer or China and migrated to Egypt.  I suspect Sumer because the components of the Sphinx seem more closely connected to Sumerian origins than Chinese, and because Iran is closer to Egypt than is China.  (However, the Chinese have traditionally been known as seafarers so I wouldn’t completely disregard them, either).

However, Elliott draws a fascinating line between the earliest Sumerian dragon and the Egyptian Sphinx by pointing out that the Sumerian consisted of Sekhmet (the lioness), Horus (the eagle or falcon) and Osiris (human attributes and water controlling powers) – which also brings us back to the Sphinx which was believed to be near water at the time it was constructed.

Smith, G. Elliot, M.A., M.D., FRS.  Dragons and Rain Gods,  “Bulletin of the John Rylands Library”, Volume 5, The University Press, Manchester; Longmans, Greene and Company, London; August 1918 – July 1920, p. 317-380.

And yes, on the right is the same dragon of chaos you saw battling Marduk in this blog. 

THE ultimate point being that I suspect an amulet of the Sphinx is a perfect “Man-Beast” amulet to celebrate Inanna’s sacred marriage to Dumuzi.

Things to Wear If You're Marrying a Gorgeous Shepherd

Once again, Royal Crest Estates North Andover/AIMCO lied.  On their “Maintenance Request” website, they give you the option of requesting Saturday morning for maintenance.  At noon on Saturday, when the office staff finally shows up and you call them, demanding to know where the repair guy is, they chirp, “Oh, we don‘t do routine maintenance on Saturdays!  Yes, I realize we gave you the option of requesting it.  We bad!  Tee-hee!  Yes, we probably should have called you and told you that.  Oops.  Sorry!  Are you OK?  You sound like you’re having a stroke!  Oh well, tra-la-la, have a nice day!”

I could have had the car repaired – again.  I could have scheduled the second doctor’s appointment between 8 and 12.  But no.  Royal Crest Estates and AIMCO in their hideous (lack of) customer service, screwed me up – AGAIN.  I tried desperately not to run over to the leasing office just to choke everyone in the office with my bare hands.  And then you wonder why people go so berserk with rage they show up at places of business with sharp implements.

Meanwhile, the floor guy who I drove all the way to Seabrook at 3 in the afternoon to meet over a week ago still hasn’t sent an estimate, despite repeated promises to do so.  Now I need to find another who is more reliable.

Meanwhile, I discover that the Massachusetts Motor Vehicles Vehicle Registration WEBSITE is only operational Monday through Friday, 9-5 when 99% of drivers are at their place of employment and shouldn’t be accessing anything for personal business.  REALLY, Massachusetts???  Do Massachusetts businesses know you’re stealing their employees’ time?  Only open during business hours???  The WEBSITE?!?  Oh please get me out of this hell hole governed by some of the most stupid human beings on the planet.  The Website.  THE WEBSITE.

 Meanwhile, Stop & Shop is also getting more and more idiotic by the day ... I rarely go there any more due to their being the headquarters of the Soccer Mom’s Associative Ring of Massachusetts. (SMARM). Official SMARM Vehicle: SUV. Official Activity:  Being raving idiots and so narcissistically lazy they can’t amble their wobbly, dimpled rumps a mere 5 feet to a shopping cart bay.  Now they’ve talked S&S into foregoing the utterly delicious San Pellegrino (which I love, adore and am hopelessly addicted to) in favor of (are you sitting down?) Polar Double Fudge Cheesecake Seltzer Water!!!

I stood in the bottled water aisle and shrieked, “Double Fudge Cheesecake Seltzer Water!??  What evil woman came up with this idea???!!!?”  A man AND a woman standing behind me fell down on the floor laughing.  Because you know it was a woman.  Every one knows it was a woman.  No man on the planet woke up one morning and burbled, “You know what would taste good?  Double Fudge Cheesecake Tonic  Water!”

Three women cashiers agreed with me as well – only an idiot woman would have thought up THAT idea, because only fat, idiot, dimply-assed women are buying it.  Back to Market Basket, which has more common sense at the moment.

(Deep breath).  BREATHE, woman.  Keep Calm and … whatever.

I still don’t know how to create parallel universes and step into them (see last entry), but I do know what I need to prepare for being able to do it:  visualization, imagination, invocation, focus, intent … WILL.  The underside of that:  no distraction, disorder, disarray, disquiet.

One of the more interesting invocations I’ve read came out of Sex & Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature (Leick).  Background:  Inanna is preparing to marry her beloved young gorgeous shepherd Piero … er, I mean, Dumuzi.

“She bathed in water, anointed herself with sweet oil,
Put on for an outer garment the grand Queenly robe,
Also took her “man-beast” amulets,
Was strengthening the lapis-lazuli stones on her neck,
And held her cylinder seal in her hand.
The young lady stood waiting, Dumuzi pushed open the door,
And like a moonbeam she came forth to him out of the house.
He looked at her, rejoiced in her, took her in his arms and kissed her.”

Leick, Gwendolyn.  Sex & Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature.  Routledge, London and New York.  1994, 2003.  Page 78.

“Man-Beast amulets”.

See, now, I’m once again questioning interpretative bias.  The negative connotation of the word “beast” sounds condescending and christian to me, right out of the “We are the boss of you!” mentality that American christians spout on a regular basis, as they stagger drunkenly around in the woods with their shotguns waving vicious bear traps and spraying each other in the face with buckshot.

In this context, let’s go back to the Sumerians, who are trying to write a love story here.  In much of their erotic love poetry, and even in charms and spells, Sumerians drew allegorical lines between the lust of human male animal and the lust they witnessed in the animals around them:  the bull, the ram, the lion, the goat, and so forth.  Robert D. Biggs, in ŠÀ. ZI. GA ancient Mesopotamian potency incantations (1967) wrote that, based upon potency incantations, “to describe the copulation of animals was considered sexually stimulating”, which is why you see women crying out to their bridegrooms to “mount me like a wild bull!”

So, the “man-beast amulet” takes on a certain significance here … especially if you’re doing magick.  Do we know what those looked like?  Can we design a new one?  For example, a “centaur” would be considered a “man-beast” (i.e., man and horse), as would a sphinx (man, lion, bull, I think, but don’t quote me on that).  An amulet depicting the god Pan would fulfill that requirement, or I’m even thinking a Cesare Borgia amulet:  he’s a man, known for his virility and lust; their family crest was a bull!  Would that count?

The importance, however, is that this is Inanna wearing the amulet.  She’s preparing to marry her beloved Dumuzi (later known as Tammuz), and this is one of the ways she prepares for the wedding night:  she puts on her “man-beast amulets”.  If a Goddess does this to enchant her handsome bridegroom, I’m thinking there must be some good reason for it.  I WISH I were the creative sort who could design her own “man-beast amulets” out of Sculpey© and bake them!

Piero Barone in a Parallel Universe and Quantum Physics

Last Monday, the apartment microwave broke and the toilet – which wasn’t stopped up – decided to start running and spill water all over the floor.  This is in addition to the refrigerator freezer icing up, two closet doors breaking, a towel bar tearing out of the wall, the washing machine breaking during a spin cycle … after the car breaking and not starting.  AIMCO’s crackerjack “onsite emergency maintenance technician” was not “onsite” at all, but in Woburn, an hour away.  Yet another lie from the chronic, pathological liars of North Andover’s Royal Crest Estates leasing office.

The guy came, fixed the running toilet.  I put in maintenance requests for the rest of it, scheduled for a week later.  Great.  Another Saturday shot to hell, followed by a third one consumed by getting the car fixed – again.  There was no way to find blessings in any of this, everything breaking down all at once, so I didn’t try.  Why was every single appliance in the apartment, every single light fixture, every single closet door breaking all at once?  What the …?

One of my favorite books as far as useful information goes has to be Science of the Craft (William H. Keith), who is probably best known to science fiction aficionados as a writer in their genre and who has a photo that is a laugh-out-loud riff on the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man in the World” guy on his website.

The text becomes infinitely fascinating once he begins discussing quantum physics.  Peeking into his website, it appears that he regained rights to the book just this year, and is looking for a publisher – my first hope was that he plans to update it.  This was written in 2005; I know that more discoveries in quantum physics have taken place since then; such as the exciting discovery posted here. See the "Good News of the Week".

That said:  back in 2005, he had listed the “The Worlds of Quantum Physics” – basically, the worlds in which quantum physics (to the grave discomfort of many scientists) dovetailed with magick.  His favorite turned out to be my favorite as well:

“Parallel Universe Interpretation:  this may be one of the most exciting of all practical formulations of quantum theory.  Yes, practical ... Magick becomes not the reshaping of events or objects already existing, but somehow stepping from one reality to another parallel reality, one identical to the first in every way, save that the event or object under consideration is already as desired.”
Keith, William H., The Science of the Craft, 2005, Citadel Press, Kensington Publishing Group, New York, Books, p. 70

Here’s an example:  in this universe, we have Piero Barone of Il Volo, 20 years old, blessed with an unbelievable voice that vibrates things inside of me that should not be vibrated in public.  (And holy crap, you have no idea how well he vibrates things ...!  Well, actually ... correct that:  the world seems to be filled with girls and women who really DO have an idea of how well he vibrates things.  Yum!)

However, in the next Universe over (in my perspective), we have Pieromio, 30 years old, more gorgeous than any other man anywhere on the entire planet has any right to be, a voice that vibrates even MORE things inside of me that should not be vibrated in public, and a 30-year old muscular body that has appeared on the cover of “The Sexiest Men on Earth” magazine at least 10 times.  Il Volo in that universe is now selling out stadiums and is the most popular singing group on the planet.  And yet, they are still amazingly humble and charming and have even forgiven Italy for ignoring them during the first 3 years of their career.  :)

Oh yes.  In THAT universe, Pieromio had studied magick, is gifted at astral projection and appears in solid form every night in my bedroom, intent on sending me over the moon and back, which he does magnificently, as a way of grounding his own energy level.  Before he heads back to the hotel room he’s sleeping in that night, he leaves me, his exhausted and happy spirit lover, singing his praises in my mansion. 

Hmmm.  My mansion.  I LIKE that universe.  And now here’s my question.  According to quantum physics, I should be able to create that universe and step into it.

But HOW???

Et in Arcadia ego. And Piero Blows Away Honduras.

“Et in Arcadia ego.”

There was a Samhain circle Saturday night, but I was still fighting off the effects of the (now tossed away) steroid-laden muscle relaxers – slash – pain killers – slash – neurological de-stabilizers.  It takes a long while for the effects to dissipate, and it was exhausting keeping it completely suppressed and out of public view.  I suspected that I would not benefit from a high-energy circle swirling around me; I think I sorta need exceedingly low energy, dead silence and soft music right now.  So why I thought it was a good idea to download the latest Joan Jett and the Blackhearts cd I have no idea.  Shoulda downloaded Mel Tormé. 

Hey ... what a great idea.  Let me go look in the I-Tunes store ...

Later ... listening to Mel Tormé singing, “Til the Clouds Roll By”.  He was before my time, but Harry Anderson’s character on “Night Court” was so obsessed with him, I went and listened to him, and have been listening to him ever since.

Besides, I had to spend the entire morning getting my car fixed.  Supposedly, they replaced the defunct emissions filter; as soon as I got to Methuen, the “Service Engine” and “Security” lights went back on.  Return of the white-hot rage and bloodshot eyes.  Squealing tires as I made an angry U-turn in a semi-empty gas station parking lot.  Back to dealership repair shop.  “Explain this to me,” I snapped at them, pointing at the lights.  To their credit they didn’t blame ME for it.  Unfortunately, the guy who runs the “error lights analysis machine” – or whatever they call it – had left for the day.  I have to go back again NEXT Saturday.  I don’t believe I’d be happy about that even if I weren’t under the influence of steroids breaking bad on me, among other issues.

There was something else.  The morning after the serious meltdown, I had to get up and go to work.  Reason:  whatever time off I still had I needed to coordinate a move.  I wandered by my tree at about 6:30AM almost ashamed of what she must be seeing in me; I felt compelled to stand under her branches as though she had whispered, “Come stand by me” – under the umbrella of her still verdant canopy of leaves, where I always find peace.  I can’t touch her trunk – the way that the groundskeepers have her set up, she’s planted in a fenced-in dirt mound, surrounded by yellow chrysanthemums.  To get near enough to touch her trunk, I’d have to squash the mums.  So I have no choice but to stand on the sidewalk under her canopy, although ... I longed so much to put my arms around her and lean on her trunk and just cry.

The moment I came under her canopy, I felt such an embrace I wanted to burst into tears again, but these were the good tears this time, and I knew what else had gone wrong.  Yet another learning failure:  one I had learned a year ago after returning from seeing Il Volo at the Beacon Theater with my twisted face, and had then learned again in the WC1 class (not to mention a few circles) and yet had forgotten completely after both lessons:  if you’re going to raise energy, do not fail to ground it when you’re done!

I had been allowing it to accumulate.  The occasional “wipe down” in class had dissipated some of it, but nowhere near all of it because I had raised energy in other ways away from class.  I had to be consistent and vigilant, and I hadn’t been – at all.  It had just built up, again and again, until the meds triggered the downside of it, and I exploded like a volcano.

One thing I love about my tree:  she loves me unconditionally, no matter how massive of a screw-up I am.  She just poured compassionate love into me, took a huge chunk of energy out of me and grounded it herself.  Then she suggested I do the same, so that I could recognize the sensation of grounding.  When she was done, I was trembling and near tears again.  Everyone should have a tree who loves them.

So after the new set of dashboard lights incident, I came home to continue packing and perform a grounding ceremony.  That plan was squashed when the phone rang.  It was the floor guy.  “Hey, where are you?” he wanted to know.

Another example of communication going completely awry in this new version of hell that was my life under the influence.  My version:  he was supposed to call me back at the office Friday afternoon to verify our appointment for 3:00 pm Saturday and never did.  His version:  we were meeting at 3:00 pm Saturday.  Fine.  I’d jump in the car, drive all the way to New Hampshire and be there in an hour.

No keys.

The white-hot screaming rage was back upon me in an instant.  I threw things across the room, breaking things, hearing them shatter as they hit the wall with intense pleasure ... trying to find those keys.  I knew exactly where they were 24 hours earlier; now I couldn’t find them.

If you’re tired of reading about one screaming temper tantrum after another, imagine how tired I am of flailing around in them – over and over and over again.  I’m also extremely tired of the reasons I felt I had for perpetuating them.  Chaos.  Disorder.  Things completely out of control.  Things lost and missing.  Miscommunications.  If these things were happening once every few weeks or so, it may have been tolerable.  But these were happening in succession, one right after the other – and sometimes simultaneously, for weeks on end.  I had no chance to solve one dilemma before the next one hit me.  I had no recovery time.  And it was killing me.  I couldn’t even find time to develop an affirmation against it, or – obviously – to ground it, although I did try a fast, hurried version, and you can see how well that worked.  Things just kept piling up.

An example:  I found the keys and sped off to Seabrook at 3 in the afternoon, but not before finding yet another notice from AIMCO on my door.  Now, understand that it was an AIMCO employee who set up the automatic rent payment, via which they were to get paid every month (and sometimes twice a month, being the chronic thieves that they were).  I made SURE they were the ones who set it up because I didn’t want to hear from them ever again about the monthly rent.

The notice read:  “You underpaid us!  Send more money!” despite the fact that they were the ones who set up the payment deduction in the first place.  I screamed, “What the f ...!” in the mailbox room.  These freaking jackasses!!!  That wasn’t the end of it.  In the mailbox was a check for “overpayment of rent money” in the amount of 14 cents.  So, to summarize: on one hand I owe them more money, but on the other hand I overpaid them by 14 cents.

Blood sped through my arteries up to my head again.  GET ME the *(^&* OUT OF HERE!!!  I hit the road in yet another state of rage, thanks to the perpetual, abject stupidity and ineptitude of the North Andover, Massachusetts Royal Crest Estates leasing office (AIMCO).  Got there before the floor guy.  And found a notice from the Seabrook, New Hampshire tax assessor’s office on the door.

JUST purchased the thing.  Hadn’t even moved in.  And already I’m getting notices from the Tax Man.  Or in this case, Mary Dow, the Tax Lady.  (Figures.)  I just stared at the notice in bewildered shock.  Not a “Welcome to Seabrook!” welcome wagon notice.  Not a “How can we help you?” offer.  An order – a DEMAND – that I show up and let Mary Dow, the Seabrook, New Hampshire Tax Lady tramp her muddy stinking shoes through the house, sniffing and peeking into corners, so I could pay her money to buy more muddy, stinking shoes.

Like I said.  One thing after another without a pause to recover.  I stood at the front door, reading the command performance notice, trembling and hyperventilating, no longer feeling welcome in New Hampshire.

Only one other moment calmed me back down again:



Only time I’ve tried not to scream with the audience ... at a video.  I have no idea how he manages to stay grounded faced with that audience reaction ... girls and women screaming for him ... to him ... all this ... and that body!

The Night I Almost Murdered All of Boston ... or Fun with Steroids, Part II

I had no idea what of what would happen yesterday, but so many things went so badly wrong that all of the affirmations in the world weren’t able to save me.  The car not starting was the cheery tip of one spectacularly dismal iceberg:  I didn’t get to work until 10:00a.  Now we’re talking at least 4 hours of work on the other side of the day.  Finally got ahold of the contractor, no he wouldn’t be doing the floors.  Called the floor guy.  MAYBE he could stop by Saturday afternoon.  Unfortunately, Saturday morning was the freaking car appointment and I had no idea how long that was going to take.  I’m already stressed out at the time constraints.

I leave in plenty of time to catch the 6:55 pm train.  I miss one bus by less than a minute.  Of COURSE I did.  The next bus was supposed to arrive in 8 minutes.  It did not.  It arrived closer to 25 minutes later, and I’m watching my window for catching the 6:55 grow smaller and smaller.  Despite the fact that city traffic is being horribly re-routed onto other roads to support repair on a critical bridge, Boston has inexplicably decided to do construction on at least 3 supporting roads at the same time, while scheduling a baseball and ice hockey game simultaneously.  I’m beginning to understand why people might storm into, say, Boston city planners’ offices with bloodshot eyeballs, threatening mayhem and civil disorder at the very least.  There are no cabs at all at the Marriott Residences across the street.  None.  Not one.  Of COURSE there aren’t.

I blame myself for taking so long to pee before I left the office that it’s my own damn fault I missed the bus.  My body betrayed me, THAT’s why I missed the bus.  Standing alone in the dark, I start viciously slapping my own face in punishment, berating myself for being a bald-faced, retarded slow-peeing c*nt.  It feels good, doing that.  I deserve the punishment.  Once I start, I have difficulty stopping.

The stupid bus FINALLY shows up and proceeds to inch through congested traffic.  No explanation as to why the fool is so late.  It takes the full remaining 20-minute window of time to make a 6-minute trip to North Station.

Where I am blocked by crowds of drooling, drunken Boston Bruins addicts and can’t even get into North Station because just as Boston has no concept at all of traffic planning, the TD Garden has no concept of event and foot traffic planning.  I miss the 6:55 train by :30 seconds.  Next train:  90 minutes later, at 8:40 pm.  I am now in a state of white hot rage.  I will not be getting home until 10:00 at night.  I will have to forego all of my medication.  I will lose hours of sleep.  The next Bostonian who even touches me was on the verge of being punched so violently in the face, they’d still be picking up stray teeth this morning.  I am literally cursing people out loud. 

I go back outside, praying for a cab to pull up to the station.  It will cost me $100 to get home, but at that point I don’t care.  Not a cab in sight.  Of COURSE there aren’t.  I gimp back into the hell hole that is North Station, cursing people out as I go.

The first stupid woman who plops her fat wobbly ass down on a bench next to me and shoves a pizza slice reeking of garlic and onions into her drooling mouth gets, “Get the F*CK away from me with that disgusting sh*t!” and scurries away like a rat.  The next stupid cow who wanders over babbling into her cell phone gets the same thing.  I’m in such a state of rage I’m starting to double over with stomach pains.  If I could lay my hands on something sharp I’d stab myself in the gut with it, just to get the pain out.

Courtesy http://www.baggelboy.com/category/cartoons/

Tears are blinding me.  I keep saying, “I hate this place, I HATE this place,” because I genuinely do.  I have never hated any place in the world as much as I hate Massachusetts and Boston.  And thanks to all the crap doubling up on me, I can’t get out!  Then I start in on, “I’ll pray for your death on a daily basis,” to everyone I find distasteful, which is just about everyone.  I keep telling myself to stop, but it gets worse.  And then worse.  I’m mumbling curses at people around me like a bag lady.  I don’t care.   I hate everyone and everything in the hell hole that is Boston.

I rarely see rage like this.  Not saying I never have, but it’s rare.  And once it started escalating, I couldn’t swallow it back down.  I didn’t know how.

On the train.  Trust me, no one sat down next to me because I glared ferociously at each and every onboarding passenger, and I’m sure they anticipated being stabbed to death on the train.   They weren’t far off.  Conductor:  a powerless fat woman wobbling up and down the aisles, acting like the Queen of England.  Ugly as sin.  I’m PRAYING for a weapon but didn’t have one.  I suppress urges to stick out a foot and trip her so she goes sprawling in the aisles, hopefully breaking her neck on the way down and dying a painful death on the dirty floor.

She doesn’t help her own cause by grabbing a microphone and whining nasally into it that due to an “accident in Andover”, we’ll be even further delayed.    (The accident was caused by another stupid woman in an SUV doing a U-turn on the tracks.  Of COURSE it was!)  My white hot rage ratchets up another notch.

Women all around me on the train are screeching into their cell phones in at least 3 languages.  I’m PRAYING for a pistol to materialize in my hand, so that I could shoot each and every one of them in cold blood.  No weapons materialize.  The small voice inside of me pleading, “Stop it, stop it, please stop it,” is so faint I’m only dimly aware of it.

I know I’m not psychotic, I know it, but it’s the closest I have ever come to a psychotic breakdown in my life.  Tears are still trickling down my face as the violent rage consumes most of the conscious part of me, so out of proportion to the trigger, it is complete insanity.  When I finally get home I collapse in numb exhaustion on the bed and sleep in my clothes, including my coat.  I wake up once with what feels like a high fever, but I am unable to get up and verify that.  I fall back into a deep, sick, pond-scum green colored sleep.  The next morning the fever is gone.  Both eyes are completely bloodshot, and I still have a stomach ache.

I finally getting around to tossing the Special Edition of Mas Que Amor on my I-Tunes, hear “Little Things” for the first time and burst into sobbing tears.  It’s a One Dimension … One Direction … whatever the British group is called …. Song that Il Volo chose to sing and they couldn’t have picked a song better designed to elicit just that sort of reaction.  I can’t believe I’m bawling like this.  I’m completely out of control at the moment.

I still can’t figure out what happened.  The last time I remember an emotional meltdown this out of control was … (enlightenment slowly dawns) … when they put me on steroids to kill off the Bell’s Palsy … only to discover that I have a serious tolerance issue when it comes to steroids.  Which is to say, no tolerance at all.  None.  Zip.  And my PCP knew that.  I’ve just had my leg cramp medication changed on Monday, to something much stronger.  They’re trying to treat the severe tendon and muscle cramps that are rendering me more and more lame as a neurological issue.  Like the BP was a neurological issue.  I pull out the bottle and frown at the label. 

Son … of … a … how did I miss this?

Damiana Tea, Round Two

Ahhh ... back to the Damiana Tea.  As you’ll recall (or perhaps not) I had started an experiment with the Damiana Tea (and not the Damiana steeped in liquor); Peanut died the next day and that was the end of the experimenting for a while.  I decided to try again last night.

Let’s see: this morning, my car refused to start, I missed a meeting I’m supposed to be leading, the AAA guys was late so I missed the third train, when he arrived the car started without difficulty (WTF??!!??), I misread the train schedule and missed the fourth train, the refrigerator light just went out, and my affirmations so far are a complete disaster.  Why is it that all hell breaks loose after I field test the Damiana Tea?

Example:  I’m driving out of the apartment complex to the train station and reach the intersection of roads where school busses pick up passengers.  A bunch of mothers are “supervising” their kids, and by “supervising” I mean standing in the middle of the road babbling with each other, ignoring the spawn altogether and setting an excellent example for the kiddies on how to stay out of the path of oncoming cars.  I’m not the only driver thoroughly pissed off at this gaggle of idiot mothers; I am (probably) the only driver who decided to start doing positive affirmations that morning:

The other drivers are honking, yelling out of their car windows at the women and in general being really annoyed at them.  I’m affirming:  “I react to challenging and stressful situations with peaceful tranquility.  I react to challenging and stressful situations with peaceful tranquility.  I react to challenging and stressful situations with peaceful tranquility.  I react to ... GET THE &*^& OUT OF THE ROAD, YOU IDIOT, NARCISSISTIC C*NT!  WHAT ARE YOU, STUPID??  GREAT EXAMPLE FOR THE KIDDIES, COW!”

Yeah, I’m doing great.  That doesn’t excuse the Idiot Mothers of Royal Crest Estates, North Andover, Massachusetts – all of whom should be herded into “Responsible Parenting Remedial Re-Education School” and taught stern lessons in how to act like responsible parents ... as it’s obvious none of them know how to do that.

Meanwhile, Mr. Signpost made me feel even smaller and more useless with his post:  “The last bigotry of the open-minded is their bigotry against those they see as closed-minded.”  OK, FINE.  Guilty as charged.  Actually, I suspect I have even more “bigotries” than that (see above), but I’m having a hell of a time breaking those.

But none of this tells you how the Damiana Tea worked.  Awesomely.  And I have two weeks minus one day to go with the field testing, which makes me suspect that by the end of the two weeks I’ll be ... I don’t know – in bad shape?  In good shape?  Wide-eyed and sleepless?  Jittery and jumpy?  Rubbing against trees?  Who knows?  But I basically had the same issue I had last time:  one hour later, I found myself fantasizing about you know who and why and suddenly catching myself doing it.  Looking at the clock.  Bursting into laughter.  Stuff is great.  I wish I know where Enchantments got it from, so I could give someone the Recipe-credit.

Blood Moons, Witch's Pyramid and Will I Won't I Will I Won't I Will I Go To Salem?

I’ve now de-evolved to the point where I lost track of yet another day …five days ago I could have sworn it was Thursday …. Nope!  Friday.

 From Damien Echols (“Mr. Signpost”) (whose tweets are so encouraging:  “The universe is going to take you to a level you have never seen before. Amazing things will find you,” and OMG, I believe him completely!) described the full moons which lit up the sky over the last several nights: “Tonight's full moon is called the Blood Moon or the Hunter's Moon. The only one I love more is the full moon of December.  In November it's called the Dark Moon. In December, it's the Cold Moon.”

And he’s right, today was the Blood Moon, which I wasn’t able to see until I was driving to the commuter rail lot in the morning.  What a greeting!  Initially, I could see only the reflected light behind a long line of clouds, when suddenly the moon burst forward from behind those clouds, and it felt so like a happy greeting!  I could only think how lovely it will be when I can free myself from the basement apartment and actually see the beauty of the moon from my windows ... or from my backyard!  Or front yard!  What an incentive to continue packing with anticipation.  Moon water!  Cleansing things!  Moon tonics!  Spells!  Possibilities are endless.

Speaking of Damien, he offered tarot sessions for people near Salem; I responded, “Sure, I’m near Salem”, before it hit me that maybe he meant I should COME to Salem.  Said, “D’oh!” because you all know how desperately I don’t WANT to go to Salem.  (The Massachusetts one.  New Hampshire one is fine.)  I was right in the midst of hoping he (or his rep) would say, “Ooops, changed my mind!” so I wouldn’t need  to show up for the session crying hysterically.  Instead, the response was that his next appointment was a workday – yay!  I’d forgotten that I was probably one of the few witches who worked first shift and couldn’t sync up with anybody, even if I had no problem meandering up the road to Salem.

Personally – given how thoroughly and near magically he whipped all the pain out of my back with just a hand clasp – I think his tarot reading would be awesome.  I just can’t bring myself to go back to Salem, Mass since my brother died.

They say (regarding affirmations) that they should be positively charged (“I have a beautiful, flawless body!”), as opposed to the negatively charged (“I hate these ugly warts on my toes and want to banish them.”)  And no, I do not have any warts, ugly or otherwise, on my toes, I’m just sayin’.  I flip through our current textbook (Christopher Penczak’s, The Inner Temple of Witchcraft, now dog-eared, stained and completely un-re-sellable, as if I would anyway) using his affirmations as templates for mine.

As he said, you must know what you want before you can make it happen.  The first affirmation you know as well as I do, because this blog started out as a Search for a Soul mate up until April of 2010 when I was riding a bus that was broadsided by a jeep, and nothing was ever afterward the same.  The Search for a Soul mate came to a screeching halt as I went through all of the agony, the surgery, the side-effects and the aftermath, followed by the deaths of everyone I loved.  And I still haven’t recovered (see entries on screaming leg cramps).  So I went from trying to envision the love from a human soul mate coming right around the corner to realizing I still wanted a soul mate, desperately, but I needed to re-envision him in a big way.

I needed a lover that could do everything a human lover could do without the pain.  Inadvertent pain, obviously, but just hitting the apex of that roller coaster and momentarily freezing in place while I  enjoyed the ride was enough to disable me for a week.  All of the muscles and tendons of my upper legs, lower legs and feet muscles cramped and twisted so violently and for so long I would leave teeth marks in pillows, trying not to scream so horribly the neighbors would dial 9-1-1 and I would have to explain myself to the friendly neighborhood gendarmes.  (That would be the armed and dangerous North Andover police swat team, to those of us who don’t live in France.  Which I don’t.  And I’m not even French, so I have no idea why I said that.)

The second affirmation?  No, not releasing my sudden strange affinity for faux French affectations, like, you know, “gendarmes” and “faux” instead of “fake”, but ridding myself of an emotion I seem to have in abundance.  You might have guessed that one, too, just reading this blog.  Releasing the anger.

No doubt you’ve seen the anger I hold for really stupid, narcissistic and obnoxious women and really evil corporations (not to mention dumb twinkie witches who can’t spell), but you may not have seen the self-directed anger, which I also seem to have in excess.

Now to think of a third affirmation. while my mala beads wind their way through the post.  A WCI classmate wisely suggested tying knots in a string (there will be a pause while I try to figure out how long it would take me to tie 108 knots after losing track of the number after every third knot). 

Okay, maybe I do need a memory retention affirmation.  I had actually purchased a skein of yarn to make a witch’s girdle (not the same thing as a Playtex girdle, sorry) and still haven’t managed to find the time to do it, so I’m guessing having someone else count up and connect the mala beads is probably a better idea.

Later:  noshing on a BLT (with yummy sweet Vidalia onion and kosher dill slices in there) on a sandwich-sized toasted (as Americans would say) English muffin, and as the British would say, crumpet, and the last of the Vina Temprana 2012.

I’m contemplating, as I nosh, on the origins of the “Witch’s Pyramid”, which seems odd, as I’m wondering why witches don’t more respectfully refer to it as an “Egyptian pyramid”, as that seems to be where the concept originated.

Some theorize that the theory goes back to the hieroglyphics on the Sphinx – I have yet to find a citation for that – others from 1896; still others think it originated far more recently, in 1981.

As I said, the Sphinx hieroglyphics source has a big question mark after it.  In Transcendental Magick, Its Doctrine and Ritual, written in 1896 (Arthur E. Waite, trans), Eliphas Lévi wrote:  "To attain the Sanctum Regnum, in other words, the knowledge and power of the Magi, there are four indispensable conditions - an intelligence illuminated by study, an intrepidity [dauntlessness: resolute courageousness, fearlessness] which nothing can check, a will which cannot be broken, and a prudence [the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason; sagacity or shrewdness in the management of affairs; skill and good judgment in the use of resources; caution or circumspection as to danger or risk] which nothing can corrupt and nothing intoxicate. . .” [Definitions added by me].
Source:  http://hermetic.com/osiris/onthepowersofthesphinx1.htm

I suspect the four conditions began with Levi in 1896 and were then given the “concept or model of the Pyramid” in 1981 by Clifford Bias, Spiritualist minister and founder of Universal Spiritualist Association and Ancient and Mystical Order of Seekers (A.M.O.S.). 

In his publication, The Ritual Book of Magic, Bias writes:

"The Magus, the Theurgist, the True Witch stand on a pyramid of power whose foundation is a profound knowledge of the occult, whose four sides are creative imagination, a will of steel, a living faith and the ability to keep silent."  Already the four “sides” have changed in significant ways:  we now have “creative imagination”, “a living faith” and “the ability to keep silent” – all of which in no way resemble the first list. Supposedly, the four indispensable foundations of magic weren’t attached to the physical diagram of the pyramid until 1981. 

Christopher Penczak has a terrific diagram of the concept in The Inner Temple of Witchcraft, but here’s another one.  The advantage to this one is the Latin (Italian), although the Italian is a little different (i.e., volere instead of ‘velle’) and the accompanying symbols.

Penczak’s version of this has the elements:  To Dare=Air, To Keep Silent=Water, To Know=Earth and To Will=Fire.  At the apex:  Wiccan Rede=Spirit.

This is probably one of the few times I haven’t gone ballistic at “Wiccan Rede”, which I believe to be wholly invented by Gerald Gardner and the furthest thing possible from “traditional” unless you follow Gardner’s beliefs religiously.  As I said, I have no problem with Gardnerians; I do have problems with people presenting Gerald Gardner’s invented stuff as “traditional” when it isn’t. 

The TOW is far more Celtic than I am; so .... let’s just say my affirmation to stop going ballistic at everything is working even before I started using it.  Woo-hoo!!

On the Cusp of the Hunter's Moon and Shrines to Piero Barone's Nude Torso

You know, if I were the whining sort  (and I’m sure I’m not!) (okay, you can all stop laughing now), I would swear I was still being blocked as far as accomplishing anything magickal goes.  October is turning into one of those months so crammed full of conflicting obligations I’m nigh close to flinging things at walls in frustration.  Week long business trips, moving, packing, high school reunions, FDA inspections (again!), WC classes that get me home at 10:30 at night, followed by four hours of sleep, followed by an FDA presentation, broken clothes washers, workshops, car engine lights going off, doctors insisting I make appointments with them NOW, a dentist demanding $900 to finish a root canal, my credit union’s online banking system crashing so I couldn’t pay my home refurbishing contractor, my landlord stealing my rent twice … did I forget anything? 

Oh yeah.  The evil slumlords from Royal Crest Estates (AIMCO) left another note on my door when I came home last night, “Right in the middle of everything else, we decided to perform another home inspection invasion TOMORROW, and we’re hoping you’ll be so flummoxed by having another one scheduled a mere two months after the previous one that you’ll give up, go to work, and leave us to pillage and steal from your home at our leisure.”  Well, they ARE evil, doing something this evil is right up their alley.  In Worcester, they heisted a book of checks off a bookcase, so apparently, they perform this thieving scam all over Massachusetts.  Who knows what they could steal in a home full of packed boxes.  I sent a shrieking note to my boss.  Fortunately, and unlike AIMCO, she’s a decent human being.

But the most important pathways for me in all of this relentless chaos?  Studying, learning, practicing and getting into the new house to build altars and sanctuaries and peaceful places to learn  everything, watching the sun move through the sky and planning herb gardens for the spring, embroidering sigils … so many things.  And yet I seem to continually be running in place and hitting brick walls … it’s frustrating.

I decided to consult my tarot deck, the Crowley Thoth, asking the rather open-ended, “WTF?”, or more specifically, why are all these critical dates and events converging on and conflicting with one another?  I need peace and tranquility, I need the ability to meditate, calm my inner voice, learn valuable skills, and everything seems to be deliberately blocking that, forcing me to juggle appointments, run from one event to the next, worry as to whether I’ll make it on time.  Doing that makes me forgetful and upset.  And these convergences are SO deliberate – really, there’s no other word for it – I want to know why.  What is the purpose of this relentless chaos?  Good example:  this vicious home invasion by Royal Crest Estates/AIMCO every two months means that I now need to cancel a desperately needed doctor’s appointment on Monday, cancelling a flu shot and new scrips for medication because I can’t go two full days without pay.  And I NEED the flu shot; rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes makes you susceptible to all sorts of things.  This is a return to the days of the Sky Sadist.

Background, current situation, future state:  Emperor – Hanged Man (R) – Prince of Disks.

Emperor:  “Thus, this card indicates that you have a strong desire to see your ideas manifested on the physical plane in the form of material gain or accomplishment. An opportunity will arrive that could be the foundation of a very successful future.”  From the biddy tarot .

“Hanged Man usually indicates a lack of ability to help oneself through independent action. This energy is arrested and awaiting judgment. With this card, there is no avenue for the will to regain control until the situation has passed.  This represents a good time to be philosophical, to study and meditate upon the position you find yourself in, and form resolutions for the moment you become free again.”  From the Old English Tarot: 

Prince of Disks:  ... the Prince of Disks is slow in following and developing his plans and ideas, yet he is steady and unwavering - once on his path, he is going forward towards his goal.  Great.  (*sigh*)

Second WC1 class yesterday, in the middle of the FDA inspection and on the cusp of this sadistic and evil AIMCO Home Invasion.  The third class, next month, falls on the day when the new director pays a visit to Cambridge, which is the same day as a court appearance in Lawrence, wherein I will attempt to regain a house full of stolen property!  What the …?  This is so consistent, it has begin to veer back into “find me some chicken entrails, I have to kick the gypsy curse” territory.

Sorry, fleeing chicken!  Just joking!  I really don’t want your entrails!

I discovered that I do really well on guided meditations; much better than solo ones.  We were learning to focus on shapes and colors; tastes and smells … the teacher had led us all calmly and quietly into visualizing an orange against a white background, peeling it, and tasting it.  It was going surprisingly well … when all of a sudden, a delectable, delicious and verrrry recognizable nude male torso appeared without warning in my field of vision and *pop*!  The orange disappeared in a splash of juice and all that was left was me, breathing heavily and thinking, “Oh yessss, peel me one of THOSE grapes, please.”

Zepar!!!  (“Zepar is a Great Duke, who tries to seduce women, and if requested by them, he can change his shape into that of their beloved man” ... see an entry or so ago.)  You know, this could be very useful, indeed.  This one, this one, this one, this one!!!

I don’t know how he could live up to the perfect prototype that is Piero Barone (all this – and that voice!), but ... ohhhhh myyyyy.  Please, please, please do try!  I realize that fortunately, every woman has a different and subjective view of “the perfect male body”, but for me, this is it.  This is the paragon of male perfection.  Given a choice, I would have constructed an anatomically correct version of this one from clay, fired it up, and built a shrine to it in my living room.  After all, I know it was the Sicilian Greek Euhemerus who theorized that all gods originated as super-stellar human beings, like my awesomely sexy Piero, here ...

OMG!  I can’t stop lusting after Piero Barone even while I’m trying to visualize an orange!  I definitely need to get my trains of thought under control, here.  Arrgh.  The Hunter's Moon is tomorrow night, and I'm wondering what sort of spells work well with a full moon so close to the veil.  If I could find a "learn to focus!" full moon spell, I'm all over it.

Affirmations.  As part of my homework assignment this month, I have to select and repeat three of them.  In repetitions of magical numbers, like  3, 9, 33, 108.  The assignment brought up another term I’d never heard before:  mala beads.  Like rosary beads, used for counting affirmations, mantras, prayers, although the mala beads were invented first, by a millennium or so or three … or four … or maybe more.  Went and looked them up.  Tibetan. Japanese.  Hindu.  Traced way back to BC, the first known ones.  Used for meditation.  Just went online and found a rose quartz one I really liked.  And so, now that the mala beads are on their way I need to select three affirmations to recite.  My choice.  This may take a while.

Affirmations.  I hear Billy Burke as Charlie Swan snapping an irritated and disgusted, “You want me visualize,” at his daughter when she asked him to picture her in a healthy state.  But after class was over, I discovered that there were components of “instant magic” that actually worked.  One was creating a trigger from within a deeply meditative state and using it later.  I questioned whether or not it would work right away, although the psychological principle behind the act was sound.  I just didn’t expect it to work so quickly.  I tried it the next day, and was astounded when it worked.

And this is why you should probably not use it in an elevator the first time – I can no longer recall why I felt I needed it!  So much for the spell journal!

Find a place of power in nature.  That was a no-brainer!  The rock in my back yard in Seabrook.  The first time I saw it I gasped in awe of its size and beauty and radiating tranquility.  I adore that rock – although technically speaking, it’s more of a large boulder than a rock!  I need to have Dana devise some way of (gracefully) climbing up on the rock (when I tell you it’s huge, I’m not kidding) so that I can meditate up there.  But can I get back to it before the next class?  Who knows?