Cold. Fractured. Disassociated. Sad.

A few days ago I was battling an intense amount of anger, a sense of betrayal, hurt ... all the bad things.  I was not selected for my own job ... and was, simply, devastated, at 8 in the morning, when I was handed the usual bullshit as to why I wasn’t selected.  The minute that happened, both the manager and director came racing back from an offsite event – after I thought I could process the rejection alone, as everyone in the office was in the same event – with a disaster, and I spent the next 12 hours fixing it along with them.  Tried to remain unemotional through the whole thing, and I don’t think either one of them noticed a change in my demeanor, but it was a god-awful struggle.  They were both in extremely bad moods – not AT me, the disaster was not of my doing – but I had to battle their bad moods as well.  I got home at 8:30 at night, exhausted, near tears and utterly depressed.  Every thought I had all the way home was not productive; the best I could manage was convincing myself not to do anything stupid until I was more rational.

Rick Levine’s Daily Horoscope for the following day (a day off, actually):

You may have complicated issues at home to handle that end up getting in the way of more ambitious plans. Perhaps you thought that others would support your ideas, but something doesn't go as expected today. Nevertheless, don't worry too much about your previous strategy, for it can be changed in a moment's notice by someone's surprising reaction. Instead, willingly leap into the great unknown. Dancing with uncertainty now keeps you humble and on your toes.

Humble, huh?  No, I’m pretty much pissed off, not “humble” about it. 

Yesterday’s (when the incident occurred) is even more off-base:

The weight on your shoulders is lighter today because of the progress you are making on more enjoyable aspects of your life. It's finally time to reap the benefits of your recent hard work and take some well-deserved time off. There's no reason to justify your actions; pursuing pleasure is your reward for a job well done.

Think maybe he miscalculated?

I decided I wouldn’t make a definite decision on a path forward, but I had ordered several suits to deliver the training I thought I would be delivering – both of them needed to be shortened, so I found a local tailor.  No matter what I decide, at least I’ll have some semi-attractive business suits to be interviewed in, should my rational decision be to look for work elsewhere.  The local tailor/alterations place doesn’t open until 10 a.m., so I’m waiting for 10:00 to roll around to call for directions. 

I also looked up several seminars I will attend, if I’m still at the same place early next year.  THEY will make me qualified to go anywhere I choose to go.  A few co-workers whispered, “Do what you have to do.” – meaning, I don’t want you to leave, but I’ll understand if you do.  At least I had their support, for which I was grateful.

I had just purchased and received Michelle Belanger’s Watcher Angel tarot and used it on this.  My favorite deck has always been the Crowley-Harris Thoth deck, but I also liked this one, given my affinity for the Grigori, for obvious reasons.  I also like it for not perpetuating the judeo-christian obsession with vengeful and hate-filled deities condemning anyone for loving people they don’t approve of – women like me, in this case.  That’s judaism, islam and christianity’s world – a dark and evil place where men actually believe they’re superior to everything else and women prop up the straw effigies with pitiful and thin-lipped determination even if it kills them.  Well, no one ever said women had an ounce of brain matter or emotional stability, either, so there you go.

But back to my job.  The cards basically confirmed what I already knew – I’m in a very dark place at the moment.  Mr. Signpost had taken a selfie of himself:  cold.  fractured.  disassociated.  sad.  I said it made my heart hurt, but I knew it was because mine did, and I saw myself instead of him in that photo.

I know I’m probably going to have to leave, but don’t know where to ... or when ... or whether I should stick to this industry at all.  I spent so much money going back to Michigan, just so that I COULD advance in this field, and here we are again ... unwanted.  I don’t know where else to go.

I’ll be battling this for a while.

Tree Magick Preparation and Perdurabo

I’m preparing for a workshop on The Standing People being held today … [pause for thought] … I don’t like the word "workshop"; it makes a tree sound like bacteria you peer at through a microscope, scribble notes about in laboratory notebooks and discuss endlessly with your peers in biology class. "A Respectful and Powerful Introduction to the Magnificent Tree" is better. I’m preparing for that.

I finished Perdurabo, and suggest that if you’ve only heard bad things about Aleister Crowley, you’d do well to read the book, if you have the time.  Very thick, well documented, 562 pages!

Not saying I would have enjoyed being part of his OTO family; just that you realize he was nowhere near as evil as the British and American press said he was while he was alive. Enormously intelligent and quite gifted. He seemed to REALLY enjoy sex magick, until he got older and his ‘get up and go’ got up and went. AND, he seemed to have an odd habit of being sexually attracted to women who were borderline insane – in the medical sense of the word "insane" – as more than a few of them became so downright frightening after becoming involved with him that he seemed tame in comparison. Of course, our primary source for that are his notes and diaries, so he could have greatly exaggerated his demeanor in the midst of their chaotic hysteria, knife-wielding crazed jealousy and baby-producing.

Things I questioned: I tend to give people of Crowley’s era a bit of a break, because it almost feels as though they were the ones who had to forcibly begin to crawl out from under the historically smothering, dangerous, toxic cloud of patriarchal christianity that had placed Europe and the Americas in the dark ages for so long. They tried their best, but they seemed to be still suffering in many respects from the choking stench, even though they’d lifted their heads above the swamp.

For example, Ida Craddock did her best to maintain an intense christianity while railing against their loathing of and longing for sex – the end result killed her.

Crowley’s biography discusses OTO and one of the grades of Magus he claims Crowley had attained:

"The Magus was a special attainment, as only seven others in the past had ever attained the grade and founded a religion: Lao Tzu’s Taoism, Thoth’s Egyptian mysteries, Krishna’s Vedanta, Gautama’s Buddhism, Moses’ Judaism, the suffering and slain pattern of Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Jesus and Dionysus, and the Islamic religion of Mohammed." (p. 295)

Now, I would have backed away from "founded a religion" like I would have backed away from a nervous skunk backing away from a porcupine being stalked by a cougar. As it was, my first thought was, "Yeah, THAT’s exactly what the world needed: another religion!" But Crowley was still deeply entrenched in the era of men whose world view consisted exclusively of organized systems of political, sexual and personal power with themselves at the apex, something all the more evident if you look at the gender of the list of so-called "Magi", above.

As far as Crowley was concerned, women were merely tools in sex magick and walking wombs who could produce heirs. Not a single one of them had any real power or respect. (And his women, being the stupid, chronically insane nitwits they were, went along with it.) Crowley wasn’t intelligent enough to see past his own world view, and ultimately, that would be why he DIDN’T found anything of lasting value beyond many interesting ideas which can be incorporated into more relevant and contemporary belief systems. Yes, there are those still studying Thelema and more power to them if they can bring it into the next century. But I don’t think they can.

I don’t mean to pick on the Thelemites, though. Honestly, I don’t think any of us can. Seeing past one’s own world view is something so rare, I have yet to see or read anyone who could manage it. If you’re going to create a "religion", name it the "Religion of Moi", because you’re the only person who will understand it; the only adherent to whom it will make sense.
 

Boreas, Aleister Crowley, Dreaming Tea ... and Peggy Lee

"Boreas, I conjure thee, receive me on thy pinions in the air, as thou didst ravish thine Athenian bride."

Nonnus, Dionysiaca 1. 134 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.)

Boreas, Greek God of the North WInd

Now, call me a hopeless romantic, but if I had been Nonnus, the one writing those lines (and if Nonnus had been a woman), I might have tried to sound ... oh, I dunno … a little more enthusiastic? A smidge more … passionate?

"Boreas, I conjure thee! Receive me on thy pinions in the air – as thou did ravish thine Athenian bride!"

Boreas, lest thee hast forgotten ... eth ... is the Greek God of the North Wind. He of the Purple Wings, the wings on his legs, the bad temper ... I have grown somewhat fond of this guy. Well, except for the small issue of kidnaping and ... what was that euphemism again? Oh yes ... ravishing! ... and ravishing his future wife.

The cad. She’s out dancing next to a river … which girls and women often do, I’m sure, as our favorite past time is dancing on riverbanks for no good reason … Boreas comes along, blows her skirt up, and … wham, bam, she’s pregnant with at least four children. Ravishment, indeed.

As a matter of fact, Boreas was so skilled at the "whoosh!"-"bam!" – "thank you, ma’am" that mares were turned away from the North Wind when he was invoked. In other words, if Boreas could ravish his wife by blowing up her skirts, he was also skilled enough to impregnate a mare the same way. Face the relevant mare lady-parts into the North Wind and let Boreas do his thing. Voila! Foals galore, even without a stallion nearby. This guy is awesome.`

Well, before we get into invoking the four winds – and, while I’m at it, NOT aiming anything impregnateable in his general direction – here goes Test #1.

(sip) (swish, swish) (swallow) Hmmmmmm. Not bad. (Having my first cup of Galangal Root Tea.) Fragrant, earthy, delicious, with a hint of a ginger-y bite. Supposedly, it’s a good tea to take before going to sleep, so why I’m taking it now (1:49 pm, Saturday), I have no iddddeeee .... zzzzzzzzz.

(Blink)

Sorry. Actually, the reason I tested it earlier is because all of the components for Test #2, the Dreaming Tea arrived. This would be Christopher Penczak’s "Dreaming Tea" recipe. (The Plant Spirit Familiar, page 170). And now, I will share with you my official Book of Shadows entry pertaining to "Dreaming Tea". Ahem:

"Holy crap."

Well, I didn’t say it was a sedate, cool, calm and collected response; just that I had recorded one.

I do not recall any dreams (which is unfortunate), but I passed out at around 7:00 pm Saturday night and still felt seriously drugged twelve hours later, to the point where, were it a commuting morning instead of a Sunday morning, I would be concerned about trying to drive in that condition.

The tea itself was bitter, so I would like to find something that would make it more palatable – I could only drink about half of it. BUT, I should note that I was also drinking the Galangal Root tea during the day, so it may have been a factor, intensifying the results. I should test that theory.

[Test result: I tried the Galangal Root tea alone the following Thursday night. This was a dangerous test, inasmuch as I had to get up and drive to the railway station the next morning. I slept deeply from 7:00 pm at night until 4:00 am the next morning – nine hours – but did not have the "intensely drugged" sensation I described previously when I woke up. I also don’t recall having any dreams. Now I have to test the Dreaming Tea without the Galangal Root chaser.]

Another issue: Penczak was never clear as to whether it was a decoction or an infusion. I went with the decoction, which may have resulted in a much stronger brew; I might want to try re-creating it via infusion next weekend. It could also be me, and my tendency to physically overreact to most drugs and medications. You know, give me Nyquil, or any antihistamine really, and I pass out and sleep through the entire illness, no matter what it was. Maybe I should have diluted the tea more than I did.

Dionysus! The Pagan Book of Days tells me that this is the start of two days of celebrations in honor of Dionysus (if you’re Greek) and Bacchus (if you’re Roman). Purpose of the celebration? To promote a fruitful grape harvest! The Witch’s Book of Days inexplicably says "Examine both your friendship braid for new additions and removals, and your cobwebs for progress." [Long pause. Assume bewildered expression. Play theme from the "Twilight Zone". HUH?????]

Moving on: was searching for something to read during the morning and evening commute that did NOT require enormous amounts of concentration. Main reason: if the train isn’t packed with women open-mouth coughing like Typhoid Mary all over everyone, it’s packed with women babbling like a pack of shrill baboons on their cellphones. It’s enough to drive you bat shit crazy, and if nothing else, it shatters what little concentration you have left into little shards of half-assed attention.

In any event, I started reading Richard Kaczynski’s, Perdurabo: the Life of Aleister Crowley, and found myself fascinated and paying more attention than I expected. Richly detailed, well documented – so far, the parts I’m enjoying the most is Kaczynski’s explanations of the rites Crowley performs at each OTO level ... and the realization that the spirits he conjures are sometimes deadly accurate ... and sometimes so off-base you have to admit that they’re not only NOT scary, they’re fairly stupid, to boot. Even Crowley gets tired of them, after a point, and begins to suspect that learning to conjure them was relatively pointless. [Musical soundtrack: "Is That All There Is?", the awesome Peggy Lee version.] Some of the other spells he does are so interesting you can’t wait to try them out yourself. The invisibility spell, for one. And no, it doesn’t make you actually invisible. What it does is make you "unnoticeable". My favorite ritual diary entry: he figured it worked when he walked around Mexico City in a red cape and a crown and no one even looked at him. He also teaches you the reasons for the basic "rule" I mentioned earlier: "never invoke anything you can’t banish". Proving that even Aleister Crowley can be incompetent at witchcraft, when he’s impatient and just learning the ropes. Now I don’t feel so clueless.

I’m thinking he would have loved the "Ghost Hunting" era of today. He knew so many spirits and so many so-called "demons" on a first name basis – and could control them without even exerting himself – he could probably walk into one of those places haunted by some sort of annoying what-have-you and toss it out the window without breaking a sweat. And then take a swig of champagne and saunter out the door.

Basically the biography tells you something you probably already knew: fundamentalist christians are idiots, and are practically paralyzed by fear. There were plenty of moments when he was told by an invoked being to do something and because he perceived the request as "black magic" refused to do it. He just didn’t argue when British pinheads in the Church of England labeled him "the most dangerous man alive" – all that accomplished was help him sell his books, and, apparently, to get Mr. Signpost tossed on death row. Of course, Crowley might have also pointed out that it was being born into a fundamentalist christian household that inspired him to seek alternative spiritual paths in the first place, but he didn’t do that, either. Heh! I’m loving this biography.

A Blizzard Named Nemo and I Think Outside the ... Embroidery Frame

To the spammer who prefaced her spam with, "Do you have problems with spam? So do I! Check my blog out if you don’t believe me!" – may I offer a few observations. First, if I’m going to see any spam by logging into your blog, all that tells me is that YOU’RE too stupid to control it. So why should I visit a blog run by someone that dumb? Second, while there may certainly be bloggers stupid enough to fall for that obvious opening line, I’m not one of them. If I see a link ANYWHERE in a comment, you’re tossed out as spam. Do NOT use this blog as cheap advertising for your own. Won’t work.

Friday the 8th: Preparing for two feet of snow ... well, ok, I’m not sure how one "prepares" for that beyond staying indoors and peering out the window nervously every once in a while, but I am eating artichoke hearts. And you might ask, "How does eating artichoke hearts help you prepare for two feet of snow?" Easy-peasy! I happen to love artichoke hearts. Eating them makes me happy. Digging myself out of two feet of snow and sitting in the dark when the power goes out does NOT make me happy. I’m hoping one balances the other out.

Saturday the 9th: It worked! No lights went out! Alright, I haven’t ventured out of doors yet, but as for the absence of a power outage: ah yes, the top secret, never before published, magical Artichoke Hearts Munchies spell came through! Oh, what a truly gifted witch I am! This spell works every time - which is to say, er ... once. :=\

Sunday the 10th: So this morning I had to stumble outside and dig my car out of two feet of snow. Afterwards, stumbling back indoors with the backache of the week, I realized I needed a spell for situations like this, to wit:

"Got hit with a blizzard and it was a zinger,
Free my car now without my lifting a finger!"

Of course, it would have been more useful had I come up with the spell BEFORE I went outside and dug the car out. (*Doh*!) (<---- Witch With Dangerously Low Preparatory Skills)

There must be some sort of witchcraft instruction somewhere that reads, "Create magic out of the things you know best.", or "Create magick from your strengths." Something along those lines. That basic "ism" hit me like a lightening bolt between the eyes when I happened to pick up Dorothy Morrison’s Utterly Wicked: Curses, Hexes & Other Unsavory Notions. Her comment in the Introduction is wonderful:

"This is not a book for those who believe that life can be lived without ever harming anyone. This is not a book for those who are overly concerned with Karma, the Threefold Law, and the Golden Rule. Nor is it a book for the squeamish, the straight-laced, or the easily offended."
Morrison, Dorothy. Utterly Wicked: Curses, Hexes & Other Unsavory Notions. Willow Tree Press, 2007. Page 1.

Ahhhh, lovely. I like her already.

The chapter that really knocked me for a loop, though, was the brief chapterino (a "very small, teensy-weensy, miniscule chapter") on the magic of stitchery. Trust me when I tell you that if there’s one craft-y skill I do have, it’s needlework. Quilting and embroidery, mostly. Okay, quilling too, which isn’t needlework, but it IS craft-y, and which I learned at Kensington Palace. But mostly the first two … although on some days when I’m feeling particularly brilliant, I can work myself up to sewing on a button.

I came across the tiny chapter on imbuing needlework and stitchery with magical intent and, because it never once occurred to me to try and combine the two, the proverbial light bulb over my head lit up.

Coincidentally – yes I know there ARE no such things as coincidences – I was reading Jonathan Cott’s The Search for Omm Sety at the same time. For those who have never heard of Omm Sety: born Dorothy Louise Eady in London, she is best known for her belief that in a previous life she had been a priestess in Ancient Egypt, and a lover of Pharaoh Seti I. According to Wikipedia, a New York Times article described her life story as "one of the Western World's most intriguing and convincing modern case histories of reincarnation."

While she was also a greatly respected Egyptologist, it is her role as the reincarnated beloved lover of Pharaoh Seti I that interested me, as (according to Omm Sety herself) he waited eons in the afterlife to find her again, and after doing so, paid her regular nightly visits, to her great joy – and mine, too, when I read about it and realized that such things were perhaps possible – spirit men in all of their anatomically correct magnificence … and living women. He was able to draw from her life force to create a solid physique that enabled their lovemaking. Yet he remained seemingly unaware that she was now a middle-aged Englishwoman – he still saw her as a young, virginal Egyptian girl that he fell in love with in his temple in Abydos. It seems that their initial sexual union (resulting in a pregnancy) was such a crime that, rather than betray him, the young priestess committed suicide, devastating him, as he was unaware as to why she died.

For those who remember the traumatic lifetime in Venice that I remembered when I was there, suicide played in a role there, too. So many aspects to the story caught my attention. Not to mention that Omm Sety was also an embroiderer, and supported herself selling embroideries of Osiris, among other things.

So many coincidences … so many ideas … so little time. I knew I needed to begin studying correspondences, symbols, sigils – physical symbols I could fill with magic intent. I also got ideas for pendulum boards, tarot layouts and all sorts of things I could embroider onto linen. I could also teach myself Shisha embroidery (mirror-work, where small pieces of mirrors, coins or other shiny objects are embroidered onto fabric), but use it for also attaching small crystal fragments if crystals were used in a spell.

Meanwhile I happened to stumble across a love spell. I won’t cite the source; suffice it to say it was written by another dumbbell of a woman. The spoken part of the spell goes like this:

"I call to thee, beloved one,
To love me more than anyone,
Seven times I pierce thy heart,
Today the magick of Venus starts.
I bind thy heart and sole to me;
As I do will so mote it be."

[Blink] [Blink, blink]

"I bind thy heart and sole to me"????? What, the idiot is ordering her readers to bind themselves to some guy’s fish dinner, or to the bottom of his foot or his shoe???

The Grammar and Spelling Psycho Police Squad

ARRGH! No, no, no, no!!! Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! Spellcheck! Grammar check! Spellcheck! Proofread! Proofread! Soul! Soul! Not sole! Sole is a fish! Sole is the bottom of the foot, or the bottom of a shoe! SOUL is the … actually, I’m not sure WHAT the technical definition of a soul is. One moment, please.  (tap, tap, tap) (sound effects of a computer keyboard) Ah. Thank you. SOUL is "the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal"! (And thank you, Dictionary.com) KERBLAM! KA-POW! KA-PLOOEY!!

[*heavy sigh*] Thank you.

So, I suspect I’ve identified my own path, after all of the preliminary research and jumping up and down with frustration. Wicca? Definitely not. Enochian? I believe so. I’ve started reading Aleister Crowley’s Magick. (Hey, at least Aleister proofread his stuff, setting him light years ahead of most of these twinkies.) We’ll see how that goes.

Special Interest Dinosaurs

From the last couple of entries, you could probably understand why I might feel the need to modernize the writings of the Magi from the turn of the century. Damien said somewhere – may have to dig for it again, though – that the knee-jerk reactions of nutball christians against Aleister Crowley (although in Damien’s defense, he didn’t use the phrase "nutball christians", that was my choice of words) came about because they didn’t understand him, and I’m quickly beginning to see his point. I would add to that comment that the same holds true for twinkie witches as well: the girly-girly, frou-frou, bleached blonde, morality-police twinkie witches didn’t understand Crowley either, or they wouldn’t be spreading around the christianized form of witchcraft they’re spreading around like so much manure. Definitely makes me wish that he’d stop re-tweeting some of the more egregious members of that frivolous coven, but since he has to live in the same town as some of them now, he’s probably being neighborly.

Or at least, I’m fervently hoping that he hasn’t abandoned Crowley’s common sense for some of these twinkies’ nonsense.

I can envision a goop of Gardnerians jumping up and down like Mexican jumping beans and yelling, "You know NUFFINK! You cahn’t be re-writing and modernizing NUFFINK!" To which I reply, "Huh? Speak English! Oh? That actually was English?" – and then, "Well, that’s really the point then, isn’t it?"

If I start out knowing nothing, then I’m the most gullible fool out here, aren’t I? In which case, I need every "i" dotted and every "t" crossed to make sure I’m not being taken advantage of, don’t I? What’s the best way to do that? Make sure every one of you handing me written information purporting to be experts called by your deity to teach me something can CITE YOUR SOURCES! If you can’t do that, then we have a problem, don’t we?

If you can’t cite your traditional and verifiable sources, then as far as I’m concerned, you’re making it up. And as I said, I have no problem with people making stuff up – really I don’t! Shows creativity and originality. But if you’re not telling me upfront that you made it up, as far as I’m concerned, you’re a fraud. Pretty much the end of that story, isn’t it?

Here’s a perfect example of the most appalling made-up nonsense I’ve read yet:

"One modern scientist once went so far as to say that the moon could not exist because its presence simply could not be scientifically explained."

McCoy, Edain. The Witches Moon, "Introduction", Page x"

[BLINK] [DEAD SILENCE] [ANOTHER BLINK]

Say what???!!!??? That sentence can’t possibly be correct – no legitimate scientist in their right mind would have said that. In fact, without footnoting that stunning announcement, she just lost 98% of her educated audience. Is she an idiot???

The last group of people who had absolutely NO grasp of science, scientists, theories, the research process (or much of anything else for that matter) was the far christian right, who have made it their life’s work to transform the once great ... ok, the once overhyped ... United States of America into "The Land of the Poor and the Chronically Stupid". These are the same people who are such idiots they keep squealing, "If we descended from apes, how come there are still apes?" – no matter how often you tell them that Darwin never said any such thing, and that they have no concept of anything the theory of evolution actually SAYS.

Point is: I may be a conspiracy theorist myself, but I strongly suspect that Edain McCoy is actually a propped up decoy by the far christian right ... someone they can point to and say, "See how stupid these witches are?" Who else would have printed something so ridiculous?

Trust me, no legitimate modern scientist ever said any such thing. Not with a solar system surrounding all of us populated with planets - many of which have their own moons. That was such a flagrantly appalling and idiotic thing to say, there’s no way she should have ever gone without citing that, and yet she did. Was the scientist subsequently put away for mental illness? Laughed out of town? Was the "scientist" still in 1st grade?? Trust me, NO scientist of any merit would have said that.

But to make certain I wasn’t going to regret blowing up like an overfed boiler, I googled that. Found it. Scientist?!!??

Here are the other topics from the unidentifiable author of the website:

The Truth At Last: exposing the real culprits behind September 11!
THE MOON: A Propaganda Hoax
Exposing the DRESDEN DECEPTION (A response to Ernst Zundel's "Z-Gram")
THE PARTHENON: A post-Hellenistic Fabrication
The IRISH POTATO HOAX of the 1840's
THE TITANIC: Hollywood Propaganda Fraud Exposed!
A MAD REVISIONIST Special Campaign:

A monument has been erected in the heart of Washington, D.C...
It sits on American land, paid for by American tax dollars...
And yet, it is dedicated to the glorification of a special interest group who are not even Americans...
Click here to help THE MAD REVISIONIST to resist this brazen expression of arrogance!

[Psst. He’s talking about dinosaurs.]

Sun Hoax Revealed!
Do the Jews exist?
Report from Sydney: THE OLYMPIC HOAX
The Great Donut Conspiracy
A Revisionist Examination of the O.J. Simpson Trial
Proof of the Allies destroying Holocaust evidence: Fuhrerpants
THE MAD REVISIONIST guide to Revisionist Philosophy
Questions about Revisionism? Ask our resident expert, Dr. Leopold Iv, in Advice from the Sewer

This is her idea of a "modern scientist"? Does she even know what a scientist is? I just sat here staring at the screen with my jaw dropped. Now, in their defense (and because I didn’t have the time or inclination to read any of it), I suspected that it might have been composed as a spoof of conspiracy theories, and not as a web page composed by a serious lunatic. In any event, my greater concern was a dumb idiot claiming to be a witch and writing a book claimed this crap was the work of a "modern scientist". She is looking more and more like a plant of the far christian right.

Need a citation? Here ‘ya go!
http://www.revisionism.nl/Moon/Moon3.htm
[Heavy sigh]

Sex, Sin and Sumerian Magic

Recovering from a fund raiser held at Sal’s, my favorite Italian restaurant, in Lawrence. Stayed out way past my bedtime, drank too much and paid the price in severe leg and foot cramps. So for the last couple of days I’ve been limping and hobbling around the apartment, groaning. I dusted, reorganized my altar, washed clothes and dishes, sewed another blouse, taught myself how to set in a shirt yoke, set up a small "study corner" and bookcase under one window in the bedroom. Damn. I’m acting like such a June Cleaver girly-girl I’m making myself sick. So I went back to reading Old World Witchcraft in an attempt to witchy-witch myself back to normal. Better witchy-witch than girly-girl. (Note to self: hey, you should needlepoint that and hang it on a wall somewhere). Arrgh! I’m corrupted beyond all hope! Someone needs to slap me silly!! OK, forget the needlepoint. Next thing you know, I’ll be wearing lace granny panties and knitting tea cozies.

Anyway. Old World Witchcraft . Same author – Grimassi - who wrote about streghe, or stregone, or whichever term you want to use. But even he tiptoes around the reality that the concept of "Do as ye will an’ harm none" certainly never came from the old world, I don’t give two figs what the Gardnerians say.

One of my favorite courses in my final year at the University of Michigan was "Mesopotamian Witchcraft and Magic" – about which you would think: "Wow. THAT had to be an easy course!" And once again, you’d be dead wrong. YOU try reading ancient Sumerian runes sometime and interpreting who a given spell was being cast on and why. We used to get into the biggest classroom debates with each other. And some of those spells were absolutely disgusting.

The point was that, in those days, people went to the Sumerian magi to not only get protective spells, but to get love potion spells, zap people with curses, etc. First thing you read in the "girly-girly" books on "How to be A Witch" is "Never use spells on other people without their permission!" And you think, "Well, what’s the frackin’ point, then, you pinhead?" If everyone fell in love with you on their own without even blinking, you wouldn’t need a love spell, now would you?

You can get some idea of why Aleister Crowley finally got so fed up with the "girly-girly" version of witchcraft he stomped off in disgust and became known as "The Great Beast". True, a lot of women who knew him personally also thought of him as the "Great Perv", but there’s not much I have to say about that. Same thing with the injunctions against using dream walking to spy on people. WHY NOT? Because it’s rude? If we’re all connected, how much privacy could we each have, to begin with? I should add, before people start getting nervous, I still haven’t been able to engage in any dream traveling and spy on anyone anyway. I suspect it’s the anti leg-cramp meds. Would I, if I could? I can’t actually think of anyone worth spying on, so probably no, I wouldn’t; I want to watch the Eleusinian Mysteries. I just don’t like being told I absolutely can’t do something, or I’ll be punished in the hereafter. Sounds like the wiccan version of Dana Carvey’s Church Lady raising her blue haired head again.

I also have a real problem with the girly-girlies trying to make it sound as though it’s a traditional "no-no" while they’re slapping your wrist with their dainty little white gloves. It’s a western culture no-no, certainly. Traditional? I don‘t think so. Sumerian is about as traditional as you’re gonna get, historically speaking, and I sure didn’t see the Sumerians running around flapping their hands and squealing, "Oooo! Naughty spell! Bad! Bad!"

Anyway, a few days ago, Damien re-tweeted a quote issued by Sacred Leather: 

"The suppression of the normal sex instinct, for example, is responsible for a thousand ills."

Aleister Crowley

Never heard of "Sacred Leather", so went and looked at them. Found quite a collection of floggers, whips, cat o’nines, etc. Beautifully made, actually. Started to smile. Wasn’t sure a titillating flogging or two qualified as "the normal sex instinct", but I had absolutely no room to judge anyone as far as that went. What exactly IS a "normal sex instinct"?

Picture it: Manhattan. Some time ago. Met Bob, a head hunter, while looking for a new job. Ended up as a friend of both Bob and his wife. Bob & wife – when they weren’t working with suits filling legitimate 9-5 job openings - were actually in the sex ... excuse me, the "adult entertainment" ... trade, but next to nobody knew that. They owned a collection of call-in lines. Two of us who did know that were Suzanne and myself. She and I met because we were both looking for jobs and Bob introduced us. Suzanne and I used to go out drinking and picking up guys together.

Only time in my life I’ve ever been in a three-way with two voyeurs: business man from out of town wanted two-on-one action and some voyeurs. I have no idea how he and Bob met, but bottom line was that Bob pimped us out with the cover story that he and his wife were pimping out their coed daughters and had to supervise. Sick story, but the guy seemed to fall for it, sadly enough. Suze and I played the coed daughters, and pulled it off only because we got ourselves good and soused ahead of time. 

It was one bad casting job since the only thing she and I had in common was our bra cup size – we looked nothing alike. Didn’t even require sex; B&D mostly. I made enough money to pay 3 months rent, and at that age, that’s a lot of money. Anyway, Bob handed us a few bucks; Suzanne and I went out earlier that evening after work and bought floggers in preparation for being pimped out that evening to an unsophisticated dom. Guess where we went?

No, not Sacred Leather, the Pink Pussycat, but they had a whole bunch of floggers! I looked at the Sacred Leather website and started lopsidedly grinning. The website brought back unexpected memories of my one and only experience as ½ of a silly hastily thrown-together sub tag-team. Would I do it again? Hell .... no. Once was enough. I was young, horny - and incredibly stupid, or I never would have gone along with it.

And it seemed that Crowley was correct. How had the businessman been twisted enough where he thought "disciplining" two (supposedly) college girls was exciting – with their (supposed) parents looking on? How had Bob and his wife been twisted enough to the point where they enjoyed diving into the sex trade in their spare time? How had Suzanne and I been twisted enough that we got giddy and drunk at the idea of going along with Bob and his wife for this pimping-out plan?

And in answer to your question: yes, they hurt. They stung and burned like hell, those things. Some people find them very erotic, and that’s fine. Me, I’m fine with being threatened with pain – and I’m not sure why that is, but I guarantee you it’s a holdover from a previous life, because my parents certainly never went to town on the physical punishment end of discipline - but I’m not so good with the pain itself. I’m a serious wuss, actually.

Do not misunderstand me. I do not subscribe to the judeo-christian concept of sex equaling sin by any stretch of the imagination. But I also don’t believe that the appalling "sex" crimes we all keep hearing so much about - Penn State and the Vatican come to mind - have anything to do with sex anyway. Mostly, they have to do with power, with rage, arrogance, with control, with acting out childhood abuse, with dominance, with violence, with everything except sex.

I was brought around again to the question I was going to ask Damien someday. First time I asked this, he was in New Zealand for the first time; here we are – he’s in New Zealand for the second time almost a year later: why is it that incubi are always considered to be demons? That they are always identified as such, along with their feminine counterparts, the succubae, strikes me as yet another judeo-christian finger-wagging response to "sex" – i.e., in the judeo-christian world view, they would have to be demons, because they equate sex so completely with sin. But why should they be?

The reason that the question came up in the first place was a matter of personal safety. These days, you never know, when you spin the "pick-me-up" roulette wheel, whether you’ll get a glorious man who truly believes in the sacredness of sex, or another Craig’s list serial killer. So why not a spirit who truly believes in the sacredness of sex?

The reason the question came up the second time had to do with a twisted face, a non-stop running nose, and violently cramping legs and feet any time I tried exercising them, or even straightening them out and trying to point my toes. Needless to say, anything that might resemble having fun - in that sense – has been shot out the window, possibly for good. I remembered the erotic dream I’d had a while back that was interrupted by vicious leg cramps. Even if I managed to up the meds high enough that the leg cramps didn’t happen as often, would the meds also put an end to the big "O"? Besides, I still had the twisted face. At least temporarily. Perhaps permanently.

"Normal sex" in my world now simply meant, "getting the biological urge met". An incubus seemed the safest and least painful way to do that. So WHY was an incubus considered a demon? Why not an angel? Why couldn’t I invoke one? "Get the urge met" without screaming in pain as though I’d been mortally wounded because all of my leg muscles seized up at the same time? And as self-conscious as I was about my face now ... trying to meet someone new was so out of the question it had passed "ridiculous" last Thursday.

If he knew me, I suspect that Damien - Mr. Signpost - would not only treat the question as a serious one, but be one of the few people whose answer I would trust, who wouldn’t make "Church Lady" judgments as he answered the question. But he doesn’t know me. It’s not as though I could tweet him the question right out of the blue. So, I’m back to trying to do research on the topic, and you’d be surprised how many stupid women – christian, witch AND pagan – still have the "sex is sin" thing stuck firmly in their heads and couldn’t be trusted to offer an honest, thoughtful answer. (*sigh*)

Day #23 of My Search for My Soul Mate

Sekhmet has arrived.

Call me neurotic, but I generally like to wash things off that arrive in my home from elsewhere – you never know who sneezed on things, or handled things immediately after leaving the ladies room without washing their hands, etc., etc. (and I say that not because I suspect Sacred Source of anything so heinous but because far too many times I have  watched women from my office stink up the woman’s room with clouds of fecal matter and fart-fragranced air, and then leave without even considering running their hands under water, never mind the soap.)

The irony?  When a woman shuffles out the door, she has to pass right by a sign that orders her to wash her hands.  The drawing that accompanied the sign, if you didn’t realize those were soap bubbles, actually looked like applauding hands.  These women are so stupid they must assume they were being applauded for releasing what had to be a world record stink-bomb of a bowel-movement and then not washing the stench of droplets of fecal material off of their hands.

“Yay!  Congratulations!  You’re a world class pig!”

Who raises these women?  MY mother would have hauled me back to the sink by one ear if I’d even thought about not washing my hands.  You don’t even want to THINK about the piglets these women are raising.

But back to Sekhmet.

I didn’t read the description carefully enough – I was expecting she’d be black in color, instead she was painted to resemble green marble.  Went to wash her off with a moist paper towel, and ended up with a paper towel soaked with a turquoise blue color.  Said, “&^%$%^&*”.  Next I tried a Lysol wet wipe out of  green plastic can.  Same result.  Now I have no idea what to do.  Spray her with Lysol or something?  Nothing like the vision of asphyxiating one’s deity in clouds of toxic fumes.  Maybe I’ll test a swipe of alcohol on the bottom of the statue where it won’t be visible if ALL of the paint dissolves.

I decided to research “ritual baths”, looking for a ritual bath guaranteed not to dissolve resin paint, which is why I ended up with Scott Cunningham’s Magical Herbalism, which I already had, from my Enchantments days.  I’d had that book for so long, the pages were turning beige instead of white.  I hadn’t even started reading about “ritual baths guaranteed not to dissolve resin paint”, because I got sidetracked reading about tools you might need if you decided you wanted to get involved in “Magical Herbalism”.  First on the list was a magical knife for cutting herbs, which I’d already learned was called a “boline”.  I looked some up, and at every turn was met with, “NOT TO BE SOLD IN MASSACHUSETTS!”.

Say what?!?

Now, here’s the catch – I already had knives I used to cut herbs .. and other things.  A few of them I’d even bought in Massachusetts – at the grocery store, in the “kitchen supplies” aisle.  I wasn’t even planning to buy a boline – until I was told that by law, I couldn’t.   All of a sudden, I couldn’t live without a boline or an athame.  I had to have them.  I had to have them NOW.  Actually, until that moment, I had always used kitchen shears to snip herbs for meal times.  Now I just HAD to have a two-sided herb knife or I’d die.

Massachusetts, it seems, has still not developed the intelligence to move past her Salem Witch Trial Days, and certainly not past the days of Prohibition.  Nothing makes an item of desire more desirable than absolutely forbidding it.  Massachusetts is a stupid state.  If you’re a witch, or a wizard, in Massachusetts, you have to sneak out of state, buy an athame or a boline in some other state, and sneak it back in the Nanny State and risk getting arrested and thrown in jail.  Like Damien was thrown in jail for reading Aleister Crowley and calling himself wiccan.  You wouldn’t have thought so, but apparently Massachusetts was as backward as Arkansas.

I was pretty much stunned.  Really, I hadn’t even considered buying either one – probably ever – the thought had never even crossed my mind.  Now I was  searching high and low for shops in New Hampshire or Maine that sold them. Then I stopped myself, while I waited to calm down.    I have never been so homesick for New York as I was, after trying to cut herbs in Massachusetts.

America.  Land of the Free, huh?  Not in Massachustts, it ain’t.

Meanwhile, I tried mixing up the annointing oil with my new eyedropper.  Smelled wonderful, but why does the scent disappear so quickly?  I decided I liked the scent better without the orange oil, and tried to figure out why.

The last thing I did before closing the book was have a silent raging argument with the late Scott Cunningham (and probably the Gardnerians too, if they hold to the same opinion) about making a wand.  Not only do the instructions call for you to remove it from a living tree, they want you to remove the bark.  My immediate reaction?  “[BLEEP!!] THAT!”

Truth is, mine is well over 30 years old at the moment, and it picked me.  I also knew nothing about trees at the time (and still don’t) and couldn’t tell you what kind of tree it came from.  I assume the universe knew what it was doing when it handed this beautiful wand to me.  Not only did I find it lying forlornly on the ground, but removing its beautiful bark never even occurred to me.  Years of holding it and always having it near me has left it with a beautiful sheen on the bark.  I love the thing.  When I wandered away from the Wicca lessons, it served as the best back scratcher on the planet.  I have carried it all over the United States and it’s still awesomely beautiful.

And not once did I harm a living tree to obtain her.  Screw THAT!  He may be far more experienced in Wicca than I am, but I still know he was wrong when he wrote that.  And witches are still wrong if they keep spreading that misinformation around.

Witches:  Rewrite your books.  It is NOT necessary that a wand come from a living tree.  The essence of the tree remains with the branch even if it is no longer attached to the tree, and ripping it away from a living tree is cruel to the wand and to the tree.  In fact, your essence bonds more easily to a wand not still bonded to a living tree.  These instructions are WRONG!  Using wood you obtain from the ground is equally valid.  If the wand finds you (easily determined by having it catch your eye and you finding it beautiful), claim it and make it your own.  And the bark is a beautiful part of the wood.  Trust me.  YOU look better with your skin on; so does the wood.

Making the Day Book is turning out to be rather fascinating … on November 9^th, I learned all about the Loy Krathong festival in Thailand.  This year it’s being held on the 24^th of November; Diane Stein in her “Goddess Book of Days” apparently didn’t think her readers would look it up and discover that it’s a floating holiday, and supposed to coincide with a full moon – Stein put it in her book on the 9^th.

Google some images of the festival, and it’s really rather beautiful – all these tiny lights floating on rivers, as everyone uses the festival to floating away their misfortune and bad things in the past and asking for good luck in the future.   Trying to envision what would happen if I went and floated something on the Charles.  Ehhhh … knowing the Boston Police, I’d probably get arrested.  Either for that, or for sneaking back into the state with a ritual herb cutting knife.

But now … back to Sekhmet.

"I am the Darkness behind and beneath the shadows.

I am the absence of air that awaits at the bottom of every breath.

I am the Ending before Life begins again,

The Decay that fertilizes the Living.

I am the Bottomless Pit,

The never-ending struggle to reclaim that which is denied.

I am the Key that unlocks every Door.

I am the Glory of Discovery,

For I am that which is hidden, secluded and forbidden

Come to me at the Dark Moon and see that which can not be seen,

Face the terror that is yours alone.

Swim to me through the blackest oceans

To the center of your greatest fears--

The Dark God and I will keep you safe.

Scream to us in terror, and yours will be the Power to Forbear.

Think of me when you feel pleasure, and I will intensify it,

Until the time when I may have the greatest pleasure

Of meeting you at the Crossroads Between the Worlds."

Charge of the Dark Goddess

http://www.angelfire.com/moon/mothergoddess/SekhmetShrine.html