Celebrating the Feast of Ullr ... and Convection Ovens

According to the Magical Almanac for today, the Moon is still waxing (1st Quarter) and is in the sign of Aquarius, all of which makes me want to break into the Fifth Dimension song, AND which reminds me to look up “The Age of Aquarius”.  Beyond “peace guiding the planets and love steering the stars”, it occurs to me I really don’t have much of an idea of what it means, only that it’s a slow-to-arrive and slow-to-depart era that will replace the dark and repressive christian Age of Pisces.  I do remember reading once that as one era begins to fade, and the next begins to peek over a distant horizon, there is a period of unsettledness and uneasiness and chaos; we don’t seem to do well without guiding influences, so all hell breaks loose.  I should go look that up again.

BUT!  Today’s moon being in Aquarius is not the same thing as “The Age of”.  “Sympathy, affection and care towards people reach way beyond the family”, so sayeth ... somebody or another.  They should have said “towards others”, not just “towards people”.  In any event, to celebrate today’s waxing moon being in Aquarius, I went outside, braving the crunchy wet snow on my back porch, and filled all the various feeders.  I did interrupt two squirrels in the midst of feeding themselves, but hopefully they’ll come back.

Thanksgiving.  Nov 27 - Day of Parvati - Hindu Mother of the Universe and the Feast of Ullr:  “The Feast of Ullr was to celebrate the Hunt and to gain the personal luck needed for success. Weapons are dedicated on this day to Ullr. If your arms were blessed by the luck of the God of the Hunt, your family and tribe shared the bounty with a Blot and Feast to Ullr .”

Ullr (pronounced “OO-ler”) is actually the god of skiing and winter sports as well as hunting and success – Telluride, Colorado holds a Festival of Ullr every year – not so much a festival of respect for Ullr as it is the winter version of Spring Break – lots of half naked sky bunnies and drunken speed skaters hooting and hollering ... but hey, you take a pagan festival where you can get it.  Eons and eons before the invention of the ice skate with its metallic blade, Ullr used to travel across the ice with “magic bones” on his feet.  So there you go.  Usually graphics have him on skis as opposed to skates, and those in this picture the skates still look like they have metallic blades on them.  But no, he skated around on bones.

So, Happy Ullr Day!

Meanwhile, I tried out the convection oven to see what it did.  I’ve used the oven before, just not the “convection” side of it.  I will say it seems to cook things a lot faster; this is the day when I miss my cats most of all, because this was our day:  they knew exactly what day it was when the smell of roasted turkey wafted through the house – an entire year may have passed since the last one, but they all took their customary places around the dining room table and looked hopeful for 2 hours straight.  It was the only time they got this particularly treat – freshly roasted turkey – they LOVED this time of year.  So I miss them.

I am once again thinking that this may be the time to get back to the earlier “Soul Mate” project.  Obviously, it was set aside while I dealt with all sorts of accident-related hindrances (followed by grieving, when just about everyone I knew and loved died, all within a year or two of each other).  Now, where did I leave off with that?

The End of the (*Bleep!*) Me Shoes Era

Before I had my lovely accident and lost sensation and fine motor control in my lower legs and feet  ... I used to be able to, when I felt like dressing up and behaving badly, wear what I now fondly refer to as my (*Bleep!*) Me Shoes ... you know the shoe:  really high stiletto heels.  AFTER the accident, I tried them once and lost my balance in them – I no longer had the sensation (translation:  fine motor skills require the ability to sense variations in the ground) in my lower legs and feet to achieve the necessary balance for them.  I expected things to improve – or at least, that’s what the surgeon told me – so I put them away for later.

5 years later ... I figured:  hey, I’ve been strengthening my legs and feet by running underwater and doing aerobics, maybe I can wear them again.  Put them on ... and had to hold onto a counter walking gingerly down the length of my house.  A woman just knows when her own (*Bleep!*) Me Shoes era comes to a wobbly close ... I just muttered “damn!” ... do I put them away again and hope for an improvement?  Or do I give up the thought of ever wearing high heels again?

[Comment from the assembled masses:  “Hey, here’s an idea, dummy:  why don’t you start out with lower heels and work your way back up to  (*Bleep!*) Me Shoes, instead of aiming for the sex appeal summit right off the bat?”]

[Blink]  Okay, fine.  Reasonable idea.  (*sigh*)

Anyway, I’m on vacation this week of Thanksgiving.  I am finally – finally! – getting my sewing/textile arts area set up ... everything had been in plastic bins and is now being moved onto shelves.  Some of the fabric is still in bins in my storage room, so sometime today or this week, I’m going to retrieve the rest of it.  THEN (hopefully) I can talk Dana into helping me move the remainder of my stuff from my North Andover storage room into this one.  Ah, life is so complicated sometimes.

Weirdest thing:  I come home last Thursday night and there’s a notice on my door.  I don’t have the notice anymore, but, basically, it went:  “WARNING!  DANGER!  The Chief of Police is holding a meeting about the dangerous standoff of a few days ago!  It is IMPERATIVE that you be there!”  The meeting was to be held on Friday at 3 in the afternoon, while I was still at work.

My first reaction:  “Huh?  WHAT standoff of a few days ago?”  I had to go look it up in the online local news.  Apparently, some guy had barricaded himself in his home two streets in our subdivision away from me, threatening to kill himself and take us all with him.  No mention of how he planned to do that.  The local SWAT team (who knew a town this small had one?) was called in; the standoff lasted 10 hours, after which he surrendered and was carted off to jail.  He actually didn’t own the home he was barricaded in; his father did, so technically he’s not even a resident.  He also wasn’t allowed to own firearms, so the fact that he did was a bit of an issue, as far as the police were concerned.

I still couldn’t figure out what danger I was still supposedly in, so I called the police to ask.  They weren’t aware of the notice written by our Homeowner’s Association and posted on my door, and when I read it to them, they kinda went, “Sheesh.”  So apparently the Homeowner’s Association had gotten a little carried away with the imminent danger side of it.  I said, “You arrested him and he’s in jail, right?” 

Them:      Yup.  He won’t be out for a long time.
Me:      So there’s nothing I need to worry about?
Them:      Nope.
Me:      OK. I’m good.  Thanks.

 – and tossed the IMPERATIVE MEETING YOUR LIFE IS AT STAKE! notice in the trash in a state of complete agreement:  sheesh.

Note to self:  the Homeowner’s Association seems to be full of over-reactive hysterics.  I never did ask the police how he planned to “take all of us with him”, and assume he was just blustering.

Bottom line:  fortunately for me, and unfortunately for all of you slogging through this blog, I’m still here.

Finally have my  new permanent tooth. I don’t think I ever mentioned my front tooth.  Picture it:  winter, 2014.  Temperature:  something like 10 degrees below zero.  I’m shivering on the Andover commuter rail platform, waiting for the train.  I make the fatal mistake of breathing.

I heard this loud “KERRACK!” and suddenly feel something hard on my tongue.  I spit it out and look at it.  Half a tooth!  My front tooth had, in the bitter cold, cracked right in half!

Since then, I had to have the missing part of the tooth slathered in with whatever material they use to make new teeth.  That got me through a few days.  Then I had to have the remaining part of the tooth extracted, and was given a “flipper” – looked like a retainer, except it had a fake tooth on it which was created based on the remaining half of my front tooth so it looked like the original, and I had to take it out to eat, which was really annoying. 

But even worse, the sides of that “flipper” kept scraping away at other teeth and my tongue, and I hated the thing.  Extremely painful, most of the time.  A month or so ago (I had to wait until I could afford the balance of the procedure), I was given a temporary tooth, which was screwed into the bone, and I could finally get rid of the annoying flipper.  Then I returned for the permanent front tooth to be put in.  Finally!!

So – moving on – yesterday I pulled together my first-ever formal circle casting, quarters calling, deities invoking and spell casting ritual ... which is the ultimate goal for this year’s class, but you need to get started working on it from the beginning.  They always tell you never to share the spell itself with anyone else, so I won’t, but I can share a few funny and not-so-funny lessons learned: 

First:  move the coffee-table/slash/altar away from the couch BEFORE doing anything – I barked my shins on that thing more times than I can count.

Second:  while I thought I had done a run-through in my head for logistics purposes, it appears I had missed a few things.  I had ground the incense in my mortar ahead of time, and had the cast iron censor/slash/miniature cauldron ready, but forgot the long matches to light the charcoal at the bottom of it.  Had to open a door, failed to find the matches, ended up grabbing a set of tongs and using those.

Third:  test things first.  Used a gorgeous seashell as a water container, only to discover the shell had a hole in it.  Ended up having to quickly shove a paper towel under the cloth so that I wouldn’t get a water mark.  Luckily, I hadn’t cast the circle yet when that happened.

Fourth:  hadn’t caught all of the “ye”s, “thou”s and other Old English variants in the invocation and had to improvise on the fly.  I need to make sure the spoken words are words I can speak in my own voice.  And I don’t speak using “thee”s, “thou”s and “ye old”s.  It isn’t me speaking, if I start tossing out words like that, it’s somebody else.  As for the wonderful beings I directed my invocation to, trust me, they understand me quite well without all the Old English.

Fifth:  that blue circle really does generate a lot of energy.  Almost feels electric, as though it should be buzzing.  It was a lovely sensation, actually feeling the energy.

Sixth:  didn’t know that directions had different invoking and banishing symbols, so I should have printed out a diagram to refer to, at least until I have memorized them.

Seventh:  I don’t know how this will work out when I have to do this in class, because my correspondences are so different.  SO many people place water in the west and air in the east, which would work beautifully if I lived in California – but I don’t.  For me, water is in the east, because I can walk out my door, head east, and there’s the Atlantic Ocean.  The traditions that Americans use are typically Celtic or British – where water IS in the west.  The correspondences have to be entirely different for people in Australia and New Zealand.

Eighth:  bring tissues!!!  Again, won’t mention the spell, but when I was with the deities who took me under their sphere of protection and guidance when I was initiated, I ended up with tears running down my face – which can happen with you’re facing the God of Spoken Truth (Thoth) who catches every prevarication you might attempt ... not that I tried.  Point is:  complete self-honesty can be painful sometimes.  Ergo, the tears.  Unfortunately, I had nothing to mop them up with but a sleeve.

Ninth:  you might want to preview the musical accompaniment BEFORE everything starts.  I had downloaded what I thought was meditation music and missed the actually quite catchy and upbeat (also raucous and filled with laughter) tribute to Loki, right in the middle of it.  Now, under normal circumstances, I would have gotten a kick out of the song, because after watching Tom Hiddleston play Loki in the Marvel films (and doing one heck of a memorable job of it), I would have sung along with it.  However ... the juxtaposition was a bit distracting, coming as it did right in the midst of the rite.

Just opened the door to retrieve the last of the groceries:  OH NO!!!   SNOW!!!!

Gloomy November Poems, Feronia Festivals, Almond Milk and Surviving Puberty with Bob Cowsill

I’ve been hunting and pecking for a scrap of a November poem ... you’d be surprised how few of them there are that don’t reference war, bloodshed, coldness and death. 

The day dies slowly in the western sky;
The sunset splendor fades, and wan and cold
The far peaks wait the sunrise; cheerily
The goatherd calls his wanderers to their fold.
My weary soul, that fain would cease to roam,
Take comfort; evening bringeth all things home.

Homeward the swift-winged sea-gull takes its flight;
The ebbing tide breaks softly on the sand;
The sunlight boats draw shoreward for the night;
The shadows deepen over sea and land.
Be still, my soul; the hour is not yet come,
‘Ere the gods once more see thee safely home.

(Yes, that “the gods” instead of “God” in the last line was my revision.  But still ...)

Made me wonder how the month of November ended up with such a pitiful reputation.  I know the name came from “novem” (“nine”) when the Roman calendar only had 10 months in it; the number nine traditionally had the “end of things” association.  But really, November isn’t all that bad, is it?

Closest thing I could find that pinged my heart was the Italian singer Syria’s “Sei Tu”, which technically is not a November song, but a winter at the beach song.  Needless to say, “winter” and “beach” both appealed to me.  You can go to You Tube and search for Syria, Sei Tu – she debuted the song at the 1997 Festival of San Remo.  http://lyricstranslate.com provided the translation.  True, translations are never perfect – nor do they perpetuate the rhyme and meter of the original – but I liked the lyrics anyway:

Sei Tu
There are days, even in winter time,
a little sunny
when you feel like going out to take a walk
and the blood is so warm
inside my veins
even if it's cold I'm going to the seaside
and I am at peace with myself
in my tranquility
no wind could take me away
and it almost hurts my eyes
this light that won't go away
and yet suddenly it's dark
inside this soul of mine
It's you that I miss
It's you the one who tires me
it's because of this insecurity that you put me in
that you go away with every cloud that passes by
but I look forward
because there are just moments ...
if you were a blue sky
maybe I wouldn't be there
because deep down what I want
is for you to stay the way you are
the way you are...

There are moonlit nights
when you don't want to sleep
and you feel like writing and thinking
the clock ticks slowly
inside this room
sooner or later the dawn will have to come
and I'm at peace with myself
because I have no faults
but to have wanted you....
it's that when it comes to giving
I give everything I have
and then suddenly
an emptiness inside me comes

It's you I miss
it's you the one who tires me
it's because of this insecurity that you put me in
that you go away with every cloud that passes by
but I look forward
because there are just moments ...
if you were a blue sky
maybe I wouldn't be there
because deep down what I want
it's for you to stay as you are
as you are... as you are... as you are

I started trying to fill in the gaps in my annual “calendar” – which events, celebrations, festivals were or are held on which days.  Long project – I started it a few years ago, drift away for a time and then pick it back up again. 

November 15th rolled around and I was feeling both very rhythmic, hip-swiveling to Gianni Morandi, and then ethereal, with Vivaldi.  But at least I was consistent in my inconsistency.  I had re-filled the backyard bird feeder after the nor’easter and high winds had blown all of the seed out of it a week ago.  The birds were probably cursing me out, it took me so long to refill it.  Ten minutes later, they were all gathered around it, stuffing themselves and looking very happy.  I came back into the study and opened my few source books on ancient day calendars.  I’ve mentioned them before.  Their usefulness on a given day varies.  Some of them are just bewildering.

November 15th seems not to have engendered a lot of celebrations, no matter which civilization was discussed.  One source book said, simply, “Egyptian Day”.  No mention of what one was supposed to do or celebrate on “Egyptian Day”.  Say, Yay for Egyptians?  Who knows?  The Thoughts for the Quiet Hour book contributed a really depressing November poem about coming to the end of your life.  Oh, lovely.  Another thought it would be appropriate to celebrate Georgia O’Keefe’s birthday.  Really??  Mentalfloss offered “Clean out your refrigerator” day.  Uh-huh.  I celebrate that holiday every day – it’s called “eating”.  Another website tells me the day was  the Roman Feronia Festival.  Well OK, that sounded promising.  What, pray tell, was the Feronia Festival?  A “Festival in honor of Feronia” was the answer.

Yeah, I sorta already guessed that.

I look up Feronia:  “Feronia’s themes are fertility, abundance, earth, freedom, sports and recreation. Her symbols are fire and coals.  This Roman fire Goddess provides fertility and abundance during even the harshest of times ... If you find your inner reserves waning with the winter’s darkness, light a candle sometime today to invoke Feronia’s vitality. Better still, light it for a few minutes each day until you feel your energy returning.”  (Patricia Telesco, “365 Goddess: a daily guide to the magic and inspiration of the goddess”.)

Patricia Monaghan wrote that Feronia “made Her simple home in woodlands like those at Campania or at the foot of mountains like Soracte.  She may date to the era before Rome some believe She is a vestigial Etruscan Goddess, powerful enough to maintain Her own identity after Roman conquest, for Her major sanctuaries were in the central Italian areas where the Etruscans once lived.”

So there you go.  Happy Feronia Day!

The last of the source books thought November 15th was the perfect day of the year for a "Rite of Puberty" Day. Not a holiday, not a past holiday or celebration.  A Rite ... of Puberty.  On November 15th.  Really.  What exactly does one actually do to celebrate "Puberty"?  Especially if you've already gone through the experience and can't imagine anything you'd like less than celebrating it - or perhaps I'm only recalling those years from the safety of a slightly more sane adulthood.  It almost feels like I would be celebrating  "Temporary Insanity" Day.

The only link between that entry and my actual life that I can see is probably the pleasure I’m getting out of re-discovering the Cowsills ... when I tell you that my bedroom wallpaper around the age of 12 was an homage to the newly discovered and much appreciated sensual appeal of the “older man” (by which I mean the 18-year old Bob Cowsill, or however old he was at the time), I’m not kidding.  Picture a 12-year old, starry-eyed schoolgirl fervently whimpering, “He is the most beautiful human being who has ever existed since the dawn of recorded time!” (or something equally as goofy and scientifically unprovable), and that was me, every time Teen Beat, or Tiger Beat or 16, or whatever those magazines were back then, came out with a new photo of Bob Cowsill.

It occurs to me now that girls of that age must be gifted professionals at drowning themselves in relentless, unwavering – if grotesquely misdirected – optimism.  Every time I would read such sober, scholarly articles as, “What Kind of Girl does Bob REALLY Want?” they never seemed to mention seriously under aged ones with her teeth in braces, or one whose pet peeves were fractions, and her precocious little brother stealing her diary and writing in it.  Yet the emotions barreled on.  The unreachable Bob even got married somewhere in there, and that hopeless crush remained undented, because now it had tragic, “woe-is-me”, soap-opera tinged overtones which must have satisfied some sort of unfolding inner hormone-fueled self narrative.

Ah, puberty – that magical time in your life when enlightenment dawns and you discover that at least some boys may not, in fact, be terminally infected with “cooties”.  Would I have wanted anyone to publicly call attention to it – to me - in a rite???  HAIL no.  What pre-teen would??  As I recall, these were the slammed door, “leave me alone!” years when I would nurture unfamiliar sensations and unnamable hungers in secret, protecting them from prying eyes, naysayers and curious bystanders alike, confident in my belief that I was the only girl to have ever entertained such thoughts, felt such feelings, blushed so hotly at a handsome boy’s open and generous ... and two-dimensional ... smile from her bedroom wall.

Well, I could always hold a belated “Thank you Bob Cowsill” Rite of Puberty for myself now, I suppose - after all, today is supposedly the day for it.  As far as imprinting on someone during those years of roller-coaster emotional explosions go, I could have done a lot worse than Bob Cowsill, who had that “I drink milk!” wholesome image behind him – imagine where I’d be today if he’d been the spokesman for the “Underage Beer Guzzling” society.

Although, speaking of milk:  I have to confess that I cannot tolerate the taste of real milk. (Sorry, Bob!)  Not that I’m lactose intolerant or anything, I just didn’t like the taste. I haven’t had any since I was a child – I wasn’t even fond of it when I was a child ... it was just put in front of me and I was told to drink it – being an inexcusably obedient child at that age, I did.  As soon as I wasn’t told to drink it anymore, I stopped.  I can’t remember what I did drink in my post childhood years – fruit juices, and tea maybe, I always liked tea.  OK, correct that:  I was an obnoxious tea snob, I’m ashamed to say.  We never had soft drinks in the house, so I didn’t drink that until my college years.  I’ve always been a happy water-drinker too, so I probably drank a lot of tap water “on the rocks” in those years.

But then I kept seeing cartons of almond milk in the communal refrigerator at work.  One day, being curious, I tasted it, and was pleasantly surprised – I actually liked the taste of it.  Even so, it took me a while to buy some for myself – now, I drink it all the time.  Well, not ALL the time, but frequently enough that I had to look it up so see what I was actually getting out of it.  Supposedly, it has a lot of health benefits and few calories for the filling benefit.

In fact, I’ve taken to it so much I keep waiting for the downside:  some horrible side-effect brought on my guzzling almond milk all the time.  Anybody know of any?

Lords, Ladies and Magical Almanacs

Back to memorizing correspondences every day.  The fascinating side of doing that is seeing how many world religions in the millennia before monotheism all had startlingly similar correspondences, even when their belief systems didn’t necessarily align.

In any event, I was reading An Egyptian Book of Shadows, which struck me as odd, since I don’t believe the ancient Egyptians ever wrote (or carved) any so-called “Book of Shadows”.  “Book of the Dead”, sure.  “Book of Shadows”, no.  I was hoping to get some sense of their celebrations or rituals, and opened to the “Autumnal Equinox Rite”:  “The shining eye of Horus cometh.  The brilliant Eye of Horus cometh.  It cometh in peace, it sendeth forth rays of light unto Ra in the horizon, and it destroyeth the power of Set ...”

Cometh?  Sendeth?  Destroyeth??  Am I expected to pontificate with a pronounced lisp?  What happened to English?  As in:  “comes”, “sends”, “destroys”?  You know, basic working English, and not Old and Middle English, either.  The English that anyone reading this book would be speaking.  Perhaps they want me to sound like a Shakespearean-era actor or something.  Really, this attempt to either sound pretentious or toss up anachronisms while performing a seasonal ritual is just silly.

In the book’s defense, though – it does have a lot of information, and background to celebrations I hadn’t known before.  The pronunciation guide is especially helpful.  Maybe it’s just that the use of Tudor-era English – the ye’s, thou’s, cometh, sendeth – all of that smells of the King James version of the christian bible – and the rather curious belief that somehow it adds solemnity to any rite.

While I’m on the subject:  the other irritation:  “Lord”.  “Lady”.  I recall getting into a no-win discussion with an odd duck over on a pagan discussion board.  The topic was a translation of a Sumerian text.  The translation incorporated the word, “Lord” – as in “Lord Shumash” or something.  I objected to the word “Lord”.

I asked what the actual Sumerian word was, that had been translated as “lord”.  The answer:  “Lord”.  No, that was the translated word.  I wanted the Sumerian symbol itself – and pressed further:  “Did they intend it to mean someone who is respected?  Someone who governs?  Someone who is a deity?  What was the actual meaning?”  Her answer:  “Lord”.

At that point I gave up.  My feeling was that the words “lord” and “lady” carried so much emotional baggage with them, in the English language, that when I read that some pagan woman named herself, “Lady Etheria of the Celtic Realm” or something, I just cringe.  I absolutely refuse on general principles to address any of my peers as “Lady” or “Lord” anything.  Refuse.  To my mind, it sounds like the silly woman wanted to recreate childhood fairytales with herself as the Queen of the Castle, surrounded by chivalric knights – or certainly a woman with a huge household of slaves and servants waiting on her all day.  It carries with it an unpleasant whiff of entitlement, or condescension (“I am the very model of refinement amidst the unwashed hordes I must endure”) – that is just ugly in today’s day and age.

I would much prefer that we use the original Sumerian word that someone in uber class-conscious 19th century England translated as “lord” and “lady”, because they still were in pitiable awe of old, wealthy families who carried those titles.  And not just Brits, Americans as well, who – despite protestations to the contrary – still carry around the same titillating delight at applying such titles to themselves.

I seem to be also fascinated by the Magical Almanac – Llewellyn publishes it.  Some interesting articles which I hadn’t read before – I had been using it for moon sign information.

But, as an example:  in the entry for Tuesday, November 11th I read:  Waning moon.  Moon phase:  third quarter.  Color:  scarlet.  Moon sign:  Cancer.  Incense:  cinnamon.

The next day, the 12th:  everything is the same EXCEPT:  the color is now white and the incense is now:  bay laurel.

The first two are self-explanatory.  Moon sign I somewhat understand – sort of.  Maybe I need to know astronomy better.  A physics professor tried to answer the question of how the moon orbits the sun:  http://www.wired.com/2012/12/does-the-moon-orbit-the-sun-or-the-earth/ - but as interesting (and mathematically incomprehensible to me) as it was, it still doesn’t get me any closer to figuring out how the moon enters and exits an astrological “sign” – which is, in astronomical terms, a constellation seen from earth’s point of view.  But doesn’t that perspective change, depending on where on earth you are?

Or perhaps spatial reasoning is not one of my stronger abilities, to put it mildly.

So my question is:  where did the scarlet and white, and the cinnamon and bay laurel come from?  What are they connected to?  The sign of cancer?  The numbers 11 and 12?  The days Tuesday and Wednesday?  Waning moons?  Somebody just made it up?

The Awesome Bob Cowsill Belts out "Rescue" ... and I'm Not Required to Levitate Tables

Stayed home a week or so ago for an appointment, and enjoyed a glorious nor’easter.  Was thinking I would drop by the beach and revel in the gale force wind and rain – during the night the wind was so fierce I was praying to Boreas not to uproot my trees.  Which he didn’t.

But changed my mind about the beach:  the news wasn’t bad exactly, but wasn’t good either – going into the hospital for a procedure on a Friday morning at the end of November.  Here’s hoping Anna Jaques is a great hospital; this time I don’t have Jim, so had to barter my way out of having a relative pick me up.  Car service it is.

So instead of the beach, I spent the last day or so trying to put my dining room table back together.  Another one of those assembly disasters I’m no longer strong enough to easily do single handedly.  By 6:00 at night, I had ONE of the table pedestal legs re-attached; today I successfully attached the second one before picking up my suits from the seamstress.  Then I discovered there was no way in hell I was going to get the table turned over and standing upright; it was way too heavy.  Time to call Dana for help.

Had our first Year II class ... instructor was describing what we would be needing to master in order to pass the course at year’s end and calmly added, “And you’ll be required to levitate this table.”  That seemed a bit beyond my immediate skill set – (a bit?) – and because I didn’t want to protest, “Are you f**king KIDDING me?!?” right in the middle of class, I gloomily anticipated a quick and pitiful end to my studies ... until someone later – much later - told me, “She was joking!”  So – news flash:  I will not be required to levitate a table.  Which is too bad – I could have really used that ability to get the dining room table turned over.

Assignment:  another 40-day ritual of discipline.  The last ROD was a bust, mainly because the one I assigned to myself was something I had to memorize, or read off of a piece of paper, right before sleeping, and I was unfortunately right in the middle of moving here when I was trying to remember to do it every night.  After that move I was lucky I could remember how to tie my own shoes, much less that tiny piece of paper, so the ROD turned into a morning ritual of “Oh, SH*T, I forgot to do it again!”  Hey, at least I did that consistently!

So we try again.  This time the Ritual of Discipline is to learn or memorize a correspondence or ritual or related item of information I didn’t know before, every day.  So far, I’ve learned about Ahura Mazda, learned the pronunciations and meaning of neter (“neecher”) and neteru (“neecheroo”); learned what the ankh meant, and tried to make sense of the “Opening of the Mouth” ritual.  My favorite – actually, I’m not sure what I’d call her – author?  Energy vampire? Source of information on entities who need to have the christian slur “demonic” removed from them? – Michelle Belanger had created a magnificent deck of “Watcher Angels”, so I’m systematically comparing her deck with Crowley’s and getting to know the cards themselves and keeping track of readings – not as easy a task as you might think.

Back to the Cowsills.  I do agree with John Cowsill’s summary of the band – an awesomely talented group of kids who got taken down a bad path”, or something like that.  You watch the documentary done on them – Family Band:  The Cowsill Story – and you learn that the image forced onto four brothers who wanted nothing more than to be the world’s greatest rock band was just that:  a false bubble-gum pop image that sold records, so what else are four talented kids going to do but go along with it?  They’d get beaten up by a sadistic father if they didn’t.

The driving musical force behind the Cowsills was really the two oldest brothers:  Billy Cowsill and Bob Cowsill.  The start of their downward spiral was the moment when Bill, the musical genius and group’s mentor, was kicked out of both the band and the family for the crime of standing up to their abusive, violent father.  Bob, who called it “the worst day of my life”, had to fill Bill’s unfillable shoes – overnight.  You can see the shock on his face in videos of the group taken right after Bill’s “firing” – unless the camera was right on his face, he wasn’t smiling.  Paul commented on the “enormous pressure” Bob was under in those bleak days:  he had to rearrange songs, take over Bill’s lead while covering his own, he had to take on a musical direction, he had to lead the others.  And he did, and it changed him.  I think I said earlier, when the group performs today, he sounds exactly like Bill used to sound, so you sometimes forget that Bill was the original lead singer on songs like “The Rain, The Park and Other Things”, and “Hair”.

So, as I get to know the Cowsills again through a lot of You Tube videos out there, I am more and more impressed and astonished by their musical talent – all of them. 

Still – one video I discovered has become one of my favorites.  The group was performing at “A Taste of Rhode Island” in 2000.  You may not recognize the song, “Rescue”; it wasn’t one of their huge hits.  But what this is:  Bob belting out a blistering rock song ... and here’s the gloriously shocking part:  that’s Bill, to Bob’s left in the white long sleeved shirt and black pants.  Susan, John on drums and Paul and Barry are also there.  Richard Cowsill - Bob's twin brother who had pissed off their father so much he was sent off to Viet Nam and never performed with his family is also there - that's him on the tambourine next to Bob.  The Cowsills family was fully intact in this performance.  That Bob and Bill were back on stage together choked me up completely – this song might have even been more awesome if Billy’s guitar hadn’t broken in the middle of the song.  And you realize, listening to this wonderful performance, what they COULD have become, if shockingly abusive parents and moronic MGM executives hadn’t destroyed a group of awesomely talented kids out of their own greed.

Thought I’d share it with you.  Here is who the Cowsills REALLY were, all along: