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???