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?