Moonlight Desires.

This one of my all-time favourite numbers. I'm not in it, but... good goddamn. I cannot stop laughing at it, even now.

These moonlight desire haunt me!


And here's my sister, Voodoo Pixie, and I doing our Geek number! ...still not as awesome as fucking Gowan up there, though. (I needed more blood capsules in my mouth.)

Reviews: Love Magic

So, I recently came into possession of a whole trunkload of witchy books, some good and some bad. I've been working my way through them, and thought I would share my thoughts.

Bond.

I've found my new holiday nail colour! Not that you care, but I'm excited!

'The World Is Not Enough' from the OPI Skyfall collection.

Seeeeeeeeeeeeeee?  I've used it for a half-moon manicure as is my norm.


In other news... Spent a few days in Chilliwack at my mom's. She's currently in China (due back tomorrow) and so my sibling and I used her house as a sort of getaway from the city and a place to decompress from the fun and drama of October.

What's extra nice about my mom's place is that there's enough witch supplies there that you don't have to pack any of your own. And she has a back yard! Weather permitting, you can burn shit and dance around like a loon provided you don't care about the neighbours.

There's also a fairly decent little trail nearby that follows along a creek. The last day we were there I took a walk along it. Now, I've lived in British Columbia my whole life aside from about half a year in Dublin, Ireland, and so for me a natural constant has been rainy forests. Growing up in Rossland, we'd take the dog for walks up the mountain trails. In Vancouver, there's Stanley Park and some of the other natural areas around town. So walking along in the Wack was familiar - mossy ground, cedars and birch, juniper and larch, ferns and mushrooms. It's what I've always known. Sometimes I'll be reading something, and there will be descriptions of nature included, but they very often seem to be of the midwest. Basically, it never sounds wet enough. But, you know, here we don't have seasons so much as we have ten months of rain (and maybe some slush when it's cold) and two of some sun.

(I once heard a comedian on Just For Laughs who went on about Canadian winters and then added that you always have that one asshole friend from Vancouver who calls you up in December all, "yeah, it was pretty cold, I had to put on a sweater to go check on my herb garden..." I AM THAT ASSHOLE.)

Anyway, as nice as it was it's even nicer to be back somewhere where the corner store doesn't close at 9 PM and the buses run more than once an hour and don't detour through farmland.

Waxin bees.

Did you know that if you drink nothing but like, six cups of Secret Weapon tea and you haven't eaten for hours, you will pee a ton of colourless liquid?

You know what I fuckin love?

Candles. I am one of those assholes who, if you go over to their house, will ignore the fact that electricity has been invented in the name of ambience. This is yet another reason to hate summer, because having a room full of beautiful burning things just makes everything sweatier.

Thanks to my mom, I own enough Coventry candles that I may be able to bequeath some to people when I die. Lots of them are the Motor City Hoodoo line, which I consider 'working' candles. This leaves me with six of the Witches Brew line to burn purely for scent. And I do. Because it's niiiiiiice.

The only candles I love more that nice smelly ones are beeswax candles.

Recently, my friend Sweet Pea invited my sister and I to this craft fair shizz going on out at the Croatian Cultural Centre. There were many owls and moustaches. But there was also this crunchy looking dude selling beeswax candles for the Arbutus Candle Company.

Now, to give you some context as to why I wound up very excited about this... for some fucked-up reason, I can never seem to find beeswax candles here in East Van. This makes ZERO sense, considering how many bloody hippies and free spirits and hipsters live on this side of town. You'd think one of the five zillion ultra organic co-op grocers and hemp shops or whatever around here would have them, but nooooooooo. So, if I want them? I have to haul my ass across the city to Banyen Books and stock up.

SO. This crunchy dude is sitting there, and I check his prices and proceed to nearly wet myself. Dude was selling twelve inch tapers for less money that Banyen sells ones HALF that size for. Mind blooooooooooown. I bought a few different sizes and went on my merry way. I grabbed one of his cards too - obviously, since I linked that shit up there. My poor diseased brain would not have remembered the name of the company on its own.

I have one of the mega-tapers burning right now, and it is ever so lovely. The smell of beeswax makes me feel all warm and happy. It's like a hug! From bees!

I used one of the wee ones for a spell candle, and I must say the beeswax seems to pick up powder better than just plain ol' dollar store wax ones. HUZZAH!

Futhark my life.

On the way to the drugstore, there is a long white construction wall with 'post no bills' signs on it. Indeed, there are no bills. There is, however, graffiti. On my way past, I scanned the usual anti-gentrification slogans, and then did a double take.

"Is that the fucking elder futhark?"

I pulled an eyeliner pen out of my purse and quickly copied down the runes onto my wrist. Walking home I s

tudied it, cursing myself for not knowing if a) it WAS for sure the elder futhark and b) not remembering the bloody alphabet if it were. I then realised nobody in their right mind would give two shits.

A google search later, I discover, A-HA! It's the MEDIEVAL expansion on the younger futhark. I then set about translating my wrist.

It says, 'Larson.'

What we have learned today: some kid named Larson has a sharpie, and I have no life.

 

 

(My sister, however, thinks it's adorable that a) I was upset for not knowing my runic alphabet, and b) for being honestly pissed that it was just some kid's name.)

October Post-Mortem

Oh, October. How you consume my life. Every year, everything happens by Samhain... and then November is just dealing with the fallout.

So, what do you do? You look at your missed Pagan Blog Project prompts, shrug, drink your nasty mugwort tea (seriously, this shit is foul) and post some pictures from October's main events.

Music. Booze. WTFery

Fats approaching the AbraCadaver Cabaret. This has left precious little time for much of, well, anything really. Here, have some spooky music!

Boo-yah. The classic X-Entertainment Halloween Jukebox available, of course.

I downloaded Hipster Halloween after hearing a lot of the songs on Bindlegrim Radio. It's a nice alternative to the same Halloween CDs that come out every year that for some reason really, really want to make 'Purple People Eater' happen. I fucking hate that song. However, it does inexplicably include 'Teddy Bear's Panic' on it. What the fuck, Henry Hall? Henry Hall, for the record, looked like someone my sister would date. So from now on Henry Hall is her boyfriend, we've decided. We were probably drunk at the time.

SPEAKING OF DRUNK... Voodoo and I purchased some Rickard's Cardigan beer. Because it's wearing a sweater. No, seriously, that's why Voodoo bought the first box. But then we bought two more boxes, because we actually liked it. ...and Aleister Crane drank all of the first box. It's a nice autumn flavour that manages not to taste like rotting pumpkin. Next on the Spooky Brew list is Dead Guy Ale. I'll let you know how that goes.

Martha Stewart really dropped the ball this year. The only time we ever buy her bloody magazine is in October, but this year the Halloween issue was a fucking reprint! BOO-URNS, MARTHA. I wanted new spooky shit! I'd cut a bitch, but I'm pretty sure Martha is secretly like the Grand Wizard in Worst Witch or some shit.

If that wasn't WTF enough for you, I present Jeff Goldblum as a fucking vampire.

It's Coming.

Event Page

Anathema Photography

Moonlight Desires

Just got back from the Taboo Revue, showered off the sweat and the glitter, and am now eating a bagel.

Voodoo and I preformed our geek number tonight. I'm the geek, she's a dove, and I rip her throat out at the end. It's fun times! It went over well, and I managed not to choke on my blood capsule.

One of our longtime Screaming Chicken volunteers, Karen, was chatting to me at intermission and she had some very kind words to say to me, that basically boiled down to "we can really tell you've been working on choreography." That honestly made my whole night, because I have been working on becoming a better dancer.

I have three numbers - not counting the giant Satan orgy group - planned for October. I'm doing a solo for Monster Bop, I want to pitch an Elvira tribute number for the Taboo, and I've been given the okay to do a solo for AbraCadaver. I want to do just an awesome job on all of them, and part of that means devoting a lot of time to the choreo. I'm not a trained dancer, and my physique can sometimes present some challenges, so this is kinda daunting. But I am excited for it.

Anyway. Tonight's finale was... amazing. There are no words. It was hilarious and actually really physical too. I just sat in the audience and laughed hysterically. It used the following song, which Canadians my age and older may remember...

 

 "Tessa Campinelli? You were fucking Tessa Campinelli?! You're such a bastard!"

Q is for Qabalah

This post is for the Pagan Blog Project.

In my late teens, I remember seeing a copy of 'The Mystical Qabalah' by Dion Fortune in the local metaphysical bookstore. I leafed through it... and put it back on the shelf.

Part of what turned me off was the fact that the subject matter seemed to be very deeply rooted in Biblical tradition. I was a teenage transplant to a city that was the buckle of the Bible Belt, and anything that mentioned Yaweh was pretty much automatically on my 'do not want' list.

Later on, I bought 'The Witches Qabala' by Ellen Cannon Reed. The book presented the concept of the Tree of Life in a way that seemed easier to relate to. It included meditations on the spheres, with descriptions of the temples of each should you decide to travel up the tree in trance. I attempted this. I never got past Yesod.

And that was about it for the Qabalah in my life for years.

"These are weird fucking balloons..."

When you work with tarot a lot, as I do, the Qabalah tends to pop up in a lot of the reading material as the Major Arcana cards are associated with the paths between the sephiroth on the Tree. I eventually wound up with 'The Forest of Souls' by Rachel Pollack, which relates both the Qabalah and the Zohar to tarot throughout the text. I wound up purchasing 'Dreams of Being Eaten Alive' by David Rosenberg in a used bookstore because it was mentioned in Pollack's book, and it was after reading that in conjunction with 'Forest' that I really started to see the Qabalah as more than a diagram in old books.

In my personal experience, a lot of pagans don't seem overly interested in the Qabalah. Magicians do, but then magicians tend to gravitate more towards definite structure than, say, eclectic witches. There also seems to be something of a gender bias, as Qabalah has a long tradition in Western Ceremonial magic and although there are certainly women in magical lodges, there is a definite emphasis on the masculine as good in those systems that can put women off. I think perhaps this is why I never saw much about it outside of tarot books, as I was usually reading neo-Wicca sources or Chaos Magic stuff, before moving on to folk magic and hoodoo. (And honestly, all the chaos magic shit I was reading also seemed geared towards men, which certainly didn't make me want to read more Ceremonial stuff.)

Recently, I acquired 'The Kaballah Tree' also by Rachel Pollack. Actually, I also got 'The Mystical Qabalah' by Fortune after all these years too, but I started with Pollack's and I'm glad I did. The book has, for me, opened up the subject in a way that is utterly fascinating and something that I can relate to my own life. Unlike a lot of the other things I've read about the Qabalah, this book seems to give a reason to give a shit about it. (There is a good review of the book here.)

The Qabalah, as I understand it, is a method for understanding the universe. Ooh, lofty. It is at once both vast and simple; it's a subject people can and do devote their lives to studying. I... uh, don't. I don't even go to a trendy Qabalah centre and wear one of those little red cords Madonna has. I am honestly only now am beginning to truly look at the details of the whole thing and go, "ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

The Qabalah, for me anyway, was a diagram. One I didn't really care to understand - it seemed one-dimensional and overly intellectual. More Ceremonial wankery, basically. But as with so many things I dismissed when I was younger, there's a lot more depth to it. Looking at the Qabalah with a more open mind, it seems to make sense regardless of what religious tradition you're following. If the true nature of an ultimate god is hermaphroditic, and the universe exists because this unknowable force wanted to know itself, then we can then see a reflection of the divine in everything. It seems to transcend Judaism or Hermeticism and become a truly universal way of discovering the world and our place in it. Gods, angels, devils, spirits... they all seem to fit naturally onto the tree without it merely becoming a classification system.

The Tree of Life is a living thing. It exists in our bodies as well as our souls. It moves through different levels of existence, and ultimately forms a ladder by which we can achieve god-consciousness.

...told you it was lofty. Ooh.

Now. Back on earth... Is there sexism in Qabalah? I would say it depends on who is interpreting it. There seems to be such a cross-fertilization on the tree that even though the pillars are described as 'male' and 'female' with the stereotypical associations of those attached, there really isn't a cut and dry gender to any one sephiroth. It seems, to me anyway, that if we place gender bias on the Tree it's our own fault for being fallible human beings, and not the fault of the Tree itself.

It's a fascinating subject. I've only really just begun to study it, and I feel that it's one of those things that may need to be experienced and not just read about. The path up the tree is fairly daunting, and I've always been afraid of heights.

But maybe I'll at least make it past Yesod this time.

Hot Stuff.

I burnt myself bad enough to blister with hot glue earlier this week. On my birthday, actually. I was less than pleased.

Today, in preparation for the Taboo Revue on Friday, I was waxing up the nether regions. I told my sister, naturally, because there's nothing quite like that awkward moment when your sibling comes into the bathroom for her toothbrush and finds you with your legs akimbo and a strip of muslin.

"Don't burn yourself again," she cautioned me.

"If that happens I'm fuckin... busting into your room, all 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHH! HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!' waving my hands at you with pubic hair stuck to all my blisters."

"Hot."

It Begins. ...again.

It's the Autumn Equinox!

Know what that means?

We can officially start the annual HALLOWEEN COUNTDOWN!

Get out of here, summer. Nobody likes you.

Fuck yeah?

God help me, but I'm totally reading Fuckyeahnightmares on Tumblr. It's... bad? But has gems like this:

Anonymous sent: one time i was masturbating and then i see a fucking huge spider outside my window. it was scary

The reply? perverted spider

Basically it has a bunch of paranormal-ish stories submitted, and sometimes shit like the above. I am entertained.


I've also been playing the old Amiga Uninvited all day. A-fucking-mazing.

Woman-Child?

So, I'm sitting here reading this article on Jezebel, about the 'woman-child' and it's leaving me feeling sort of torn.

The author probably isn't that much older than myself - I graduated high school the year she did college. So I don't think it's some massive generational thing. I'm an adult woman - my thirty-first birthday is this month. I have no desire to be the candy-coated sort of female she's discussing...

But she loses me a few times.

The author says, "I consider brushing my hair making a major effort on the appearance front."That blows my mind, not gonna lie. I can understand being baffled by "enormous fluffy slippers from Japan with cat faces on the front" but for Christ's sake, woman, you don't brush your hair? How is that any different form Sarah Silverman's 'adolescent' look you were just bitching about?You can't go on about being sophisticated and then not brush your damn hair.

More seriously, the author's observations on marriage and even on the reasons behind this apparent embracing of childish culture are sort of... sketchy at best. The point behind the whole thing seems a bit vague too - is she criticizing other women based on their taste, or merely observing a cultural fad? Her language leaves it open to interpretation and the result is that you're not sure what her point is beyond, "WTF you guys?" She also unfairly seems to equate all 'feminine' interests as infantile, and holds motherhood as this benchmark for being an adult female.

Still, I find parts of the article interesting, as some of it dovetails with things I myself have noticed. Not so much the whole "holy shit, nail art is for little girls" thing (although I'm biased - I spent way too much time last night doing this to my nails) but in that some women do seem to prefer being, well... really young.

I work in an industry saturated with nerds of both genders. Nerds are, to be perfectly blunt, prone to arrested development. Toys and comics are expected in every home, and when you meet a guy who owns a suit he's either gay or a hipster. The uniform is a Threadless t-shirt and jeans or shorts. These are superficial things, to be sure, and it has no bearing on whether or not someone is adult enough to pay their bills or whatever.

Female nerds, by and large, also own a fuckton of Threadless t-shirts, and for whatever reason... knee-socks. So, SO many knee-socks. This is something I have seen countless times, and it never gets less weird to me. I'd blame it on me being an old fuck, but here's the thing - the women wearing these are not in their early twenties. They're my age. That means they were alive when Clueless came out, dammit. Knee-socks in the 90s were a vaguely sexualised teenager thing. (Don't remember that shit? Here.) And rainbow knee-socks? Yeah, I dunno. If you're not at Burning Man or something it seems an odd stylistic choice.

But again, fine, wear what you want! You paid for it! You probably hate my shoes!

Everyone has their hobbies and interests. I guess what throws me off is the fact that some people - male AND female - seem to have deliberately veered away from 'adulthood' and act like it's some awesome thing to be celebrated. It's not just doing your own thing, it's more of a weird "you losers are stuck with your mortgages and shit, while I can play Final Fantasy every day and live on Skittles" form of bragging. Some of the nerds I know and love are clearly nerds and always WILL be... but when I walk into their homes I don't feel like I'm on an episode of My Strange Addiction about My Little Ponies or Transformers. It's an adult home, albeit with quirky shit like a wall of vintage game consoles.

I guess what I find off-putting about the 'woman-child' is not her girliness or enthusiasm. It's the fact that she seems actively afraid of aging. It's not just, "fuck off, I like this," it's the sort of balls-to-the-wall obsession you exhibit, well, when you're a teenager. And it creeps me out, because I wind up sitting there feeling like I'm twice their age even when we were born the same year.

(Although I enjoy cupcakes and board games. ...just fix me a nice cocktail at the same time, okay?)

So, yeah. Problematic article, but it made me think. ...mostly about knee-socks.

P is for Possession

For the Pagan Blog Project!

 

Possession. The word conjures up images of crucifixes, floating beds, tortured screams and James Woods pretending to be Max von Sydow.

In the neopagan and magical community, possession is a topic which is either dismissed outright or  a subject considered so vast that you really need to specify what type you're talking about.

When the topic is dismissed, there's not much you can do but shrug. The reasons people may disbelieve in the phenomenon vary. They maybe of the opinion that possession is really a form of mental illness - a disassociative disorder usually - or just the play-acting of someone seeking attention. Other times the reason behind the dismissal is that possession may seen as solely as something relating to demons, and if the person in question has had bad experiences with Christianity they may associates the word 'possession' with oppressive behaviour. And of course there's always the people who believe the spirit world is Disneyland, and as such negative entities could never exist, therefore neither can possession.

The topic is clearly a pretty big one to break down.

So perhaps the first thing we must do is distinguish between positive and negative possessions. Positive forms of possession are those that are voluntary, generally in a religious context, and tend to end in a timely manner. Being ridden by the lwa in Voudou would be an example of this form, or being possessed by the Holy Spirit in Pentecostal Christianity or by the deceased in Spiritualism. Negative possessions, then, are those that not desired and serve to harm the person being possessed.

In the modern neopagan community, possession is now more likely to be encountered as a result of African diaspora religions becoming more visible. At the same time, while Wiccan groups have always had the 'Drawing Down' ritual, it seems more pagan groups are also incorporating actual deity possession into their rituals. All of these rituals are considered controlled (when done properly anyway) and beneficial to the ritual group at large.

Much possession seems to be culturally or religiously specific. Voudou, as a common example, is a religion in which possession is commonplace. Consequently it has a formula for dealing with the act that results in no harm befalling the ritual participants. Outside of a Voudou ritual, you rarely hear of lwa possession occurring. Voluntary possession, then, can be characterised as occurring within a ritual framework. The possessed do not just start acting up in the middle of dinner.

This is one of the main points in which involuntary possession differs - outbursts by a demon or unwanted spirit can occur at any time.

The other point, of course, is that involuntary possession is harmful. In cases of possession by the dead or by demonic entities, the victim very often is driven to harm their own bodies, or even to suicidal behaviour.

A pause to consider the demonic: as was mentioned earlier, a number of neopagans seem uncomfortable with the word 'demon.' This seems to be because the word is associated with the Devil, a figure many pagans are quick to deny. "There's no devil in the Craft," is a common claim, and indeed there is no Supreme Evil Overlord in Wiccan practice or indeed even in many other pagan faiths. However, unless a person is naive or in denial, most everyone can agree that there are in fact negative entities out there. People with a background in Ceremonial Magick tend to just go with 'demons' or sometimes 'qlippoth' and the former is good enough for me. Hey, if it quacks like a duck...

So. Involuntary possession - whether by the dead, spirits or demons - is not a desirable state. Thus the rites and rituals of exorcism exist. While the Catholic exorcism may be the most famous thanks Hollywood, all religions have ways of kicking nasty entities out of people.

There is some argument over whether anyone can be possessed, either voluntarily or no. Generally negative possessions are said to be the result of curses of the breaking of taboos, while positive ones are simply the result of either something innate in the person, or divine intervention. If one does tend to be a good host for gods, I would heartily recommend finding a group that has experience with such.

If a person honestly thinks they are being possessed by a negative entity, they too should seek magical help. Symptoms of possession traditionally include insomnia,fever, roaming, compulsively eating repellent substances, anorexia, 'repulsive stench' (which I assume means more than just, "oh god, I had milk and I'm lactose intolerant!"), foaming spit, rigidity of muscles and freezing up, superhuman strength, coprolalia, and 360 degree cranial rotation. Okay, not that last one. Anyway, these are serious symptoms no matter what may be the cause, and medical help should obviously be sought. In fact, do that first, THEN call your local magical lodge.

Although we've been using the term 'involuntary possession' thus far, there are some who hold that no possession can occur unless the possessed somehow allows it to occur. This on one level makes sense, as otherwise wouldn't gods be taking over the bodies of humans just for shits and giggles at this point? On the other hand, in the case of the demonic, this can feel a little like blaming the victim. But if the theory is incorrect, does this mean negative entities are closer to humanity somehow? Are they stronger than gods... or just way less polite?

No easy answers. This is a topic that neopagans will, no doubt, expand upon in the years to come as more faiths cross paths and grow and form new traditions.

In the meantime, don't eat the pea soup.


Resources:
Monsters by John Michael Greer
How About Demons? Possession and Exorcism in the Modern World by Felicitas D. Goodman
Drawing Down the Spirits: The Traditions and Techniques of Spirit Possession by Kenaz Filan and Raven Kaldera
Psychic Self Defense by Dion Fortune

Ghoooosts!

Oh yeah. New episode of Stripped, Scared and Sacred is up:

Johnny, I want your liiiiiver...

All about ghosts.  Also available on iTunes.

N is for Necronomicon

So the Pagan Blog Project is on the letter R right now and I'm posting way behind. 

I was busy doing important nothing! Whatever, here's another N.

So. You want to know about the Necronomicon, eh? As you should!

Necronomicon Ex Mortis. The Book... of the DEAD. "Bound in human flesh and inked in blood, this ancient Sumerian text contained bizarre burial rites, funerary incantations and demon resurrection passages. It was never meant for the world of the living." I think it's actually illegal for anyone to call themselves a horror fan and NOT know that line.

The Necronomicon is a fake grimoire made up by the author Howard Phillips Lovecraft in the 1920s. In the stories of H.P. Lovecraft and those of his contemporaries (such as August Derleth) the Necronomicon was said to have been written by 'the Mad Arab' Abdul Alhazred sometime before the year 738. Lovecraft himself stated quite firmly that the book was a fiction of his own creation, as was the history of it. He referenced other writers such as Robert Bloch and Robert E. Howard, who had also created 'terrible and forbidden' books in their fiction.

So. We got that? The Necronomicon is fake.

"But Mama," you might be saying, "I saw the damn thing for sale in a used bookstore! It had a black cover with some white squiggles on the cover, and the back mentioned the Mad Arab and everything!"

Yeah, that's it

That, boils and ghouls, is what we in the biz know as "The Simon version" so called because the supposed 'editor' went under the pseudonym 'Simon'. It was published in 1977, and has been reprinted about a million times since. The version I own - bought for fifty cents at a garage sale - is the paperback version printed in 1980 and contains a 'preface to the second edition' in which makes some pretty fantastic claims.

Now, here's the thing about the Simon book: up until the 'Prefatory Notes'? The thing is actually not obviously bullshit. The author spends a fair amount of time making links between H.P. Lovecraft and Aleister Crowley via Sumerian mythology and what was then accepted occult history.

Various Sumerian deities are equated to the Ancient Ones and Elder Gods of Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, and then to deities Crowley mentioned in his rituals. For example, the Dunwich Horror was compared to Choronzon (Crowley) and then to Pazuzu (everyone's favourite movie devil!). Further comparisons are made between the fictional Azathoth and the Egyptian Thoth, as the author claims 'Azag' is Sumerian for 'Magician' and Thoth of course is... well, Thoth. Azathoth, the author claims, is therefore "a Lord of Magicians."

...except anyone who reads Lovecraft knows Azathoth is the 'blind idiot god' of pure chaos. Sooo, that's a bit of a stretch there, Simon, if you want us to buy that Lovecraft was on the same wavelength as Crowley or even some dead Sumerians.

The book really goes off the rails in the prefatory notes, where the most typically Lovecraftian elements concerning forbidden books are laid out: renegade priests, sudden disappearances, and of course tragic accidents that befall those involved with the book.

The publisher also claims, of course, that they cannot show us the original Necronomicon manuscript from which they've gleaned their translation. Natch.

These things all point to the fact that the Simon Necronomicon is simply an occult text based vaguely on Sumerian myth, with the Lovecraft connection conceived as half marketing strategy and half obvious joke.

So then why the hell do people still believe the Necronomicon is real?

Kenneth Grant, a disciple of Crowley's, believed that Lovecraft and Crowley shared an unconscious connection in that they both drew on the same occult forces in their work... although Lovecraft interpreted these as pure imagination. Lovecraft himself was a pure materialist, finding the thought of real magic downright ridiculous and insulting. Still, this didn't stop him from claiming in the fictional history of the Necronomicon that one of the translators of the dreaded book was the famous Elizabethan magician John Dee.

Still, these are pretty flimsy claims to authenticity. The real issue at play is that everyone wants there to be an almighty grimoire somewhere, a book whose very name inspires dread, and whose study causes calamity and disaster.

There are other versions of the Necronomicon floating about, of course: Donald Tyson seems to have made it his life's mission to write extensively on the subject - he has put out a version of the book closer to the source material than the Simon version, and a few other Lovecraft-related tomes including a real-life spellbook based on the Cthulhu mythos.

This last, The Thirteen Gates of the Necronomicon, is a pretty hefty volume that tries to place the various deities and creatures of Lovecraft's stories in a magical system based on the thirteen 'true' zodiacal constellations. This is a book that truly does aim to blue the line between fiction and reality.

So. Does it work?

(There's a token chaos magician out there right now yelling, "sure!")

My answer is "dunno." I own the book - I can see it from where I'm sitting right now. ...watching me...

No, seriously, I got it when my mom's shop closed up.

I've yet to read it, but I will. And when I do, dear readers, you'll be the first to know if I summon a shoggoth. And on that note, I leave you with this...

Designer Vag

The Perfect Vagina: a documentary on the growing trend of plastic surgery on your cooch. I warn you, this is horrifying - you see a 21-year-old girl go under the knife.

You're going to want to beat the shit out of a lot of guys they talk to. (But I am sort of love in with the mulleted guy in the park who is all, "I have never not liked a vagina!" though.)

The woman who makes people "talk for their vagina" sort of makes me facepalm. But you know, if it helps people not hack up their ladybits for cosmetic purposes? Go for it.It's honestly depressing how many of the women in this film just think their genitals are hideous. Like, I'm sorry, ALL genitals are kind of weird looking, male and female.

...don't read the comments on the page, either. Fuck me, people are stupid.


And so continues my week of depressing documentaries! Also watched: the suicide forest of Japan, several horrible drug docs, and one on "England's Jersey Shore."

Tits McGee

The other night, my friend Tranny Zuko poked at a bubble in my shirt.

"What is that?" he asked.

"...double-boob," I sighed.

That's when your bra caused a little hump of flesh where your breast spills out of your cup. It's not supposed to happen, but when you've got giant boobs? It happens. A lot.

Know what else happens? Nearly suffocating yourself during pilates.

I've been working out steadily for months now, and I've dropped weight everywhere but my chest. I feel stronger, and better, but... AGH, the boobs! So I made a decision: on Tuesday, I'm talking to my doctor about breast reduction surgery.

Every since making the decision and talking to my sister and mother, it's just been like... I want it done NOW. Now now now! Yes, I know you can't do jack shit for a week after, and yeah, it takes between one and two months before you can 'do sports' or whatever, and it can take a year before your boobs get totally settled... I don't care. I just keep looking down and going, "goddamn, you could FIT THINGS AND NOT SUFFOCATE ME."

As a burlesque performer, a lot of people have seen my boobs. Duh. And honestly, part of my resistance to the idea of surgery is a result of being in the burlesque scene. For one thing? People know me by my breasts. When I've mentioned before to people that they annoy me, I get a lot of, "but you have the perfect boobs!" and so on and so forth. Yeah, sure, perfect if you don't want to DO shit.

You can't get cheap bras to turn into show bras. You hear the other girls all, "I got it on sale for ten bucks!" as they gleefully rhinestone their multi-coloured underthings. They get to fit the cute normal-sized pasties. And dance moves? When you have two huge fat sacks on your front, doing certain moves is really hard, or downright impossible.

Burlesque is an interesting subculture because it's sexual, but also filled with feminists. Burlesque performers are encouraged to feel beautiful regardless of body shape. So in a weird way, getting a tit job also feels like a betrayal to that spirit. You're changing your body. That's not a core value in burlesque. (At least not in the circles I run in.)

And of course, there's scarring. That's a concern, if only because I wonder if for the rest of my life people will assume I got implants. Because let's face it - even with a reduction, I'll still be busty. ...but I won't be a fucking I cup anymore.

But ultimately? It's my body. And the health and mental benefits will be immeasurable. So.

And goddamn am I going shopping after. FOR PRETTY BRAS.

It is too hot to function.

I am making rotting nipple pasties.

And I want a sandwich.

O Fortuna

All good things must come to and end.

This Tuesday, July 31, marked the last day that my mother's shop The Sacred Well was open for business. There are multiple reasons for the closing, most of which I am not comfortable discussing on the blog just yet, and it was a sad day for my mother, my sister, my aunts and myself.

I was there for the start of the Sacred Well, so it was only fitting I be there for the end. I went out to Chilliwack, and stayed for a few days to help my mother close up the store. There were things left unsold, of course, which means when I did come home I came back with a lot of goodies. I grabbed a bunch of books, some good some not so good, and I plan to eventually review them all here.


Before I went out to the Valley, I asked my mother if she could call my cousin's husband Spencer and see if there was any way he could fit me in for an appointment. He does tattoos, you see, and by a stroke of luck he'd had a cancellation. And so on Wednesday morning I went to Captain's Tattoo and had some work done.

This is the first piece I've had done that has any colour.  The figure is the Fortune card from the Gypsy Oracle Deck, and I have to say Spencer did a damn fine job. The boy has a light touch, and the few hours I spent on his table were actually very pleasant.


Tonight I'm just sitting around watching the old Aeon Flux cartoon and altering a dress. I'm also stretching some shoes. See, I found a pair of wedges that I bought a while back and found too small. Voodoo, meanwhile, finds them a bit too big, and so they sit in the closet, unworn. But there's a trick that may salvage them.

You put on a pair of socks, then your shoes. You then blast all the tight places of your shoes with a hairdryer, then leave them on for a while to cool. Repeat again if needed.

Of course, you look like a total idiot when you do this...

 But what the fuck ever, your shoes will fit!

Stink Pretty.

Our order from BPAL came!

We bought a bottle of Miskatonic University, because it's our favourite, and Voodoo. We had to get the Voodoo one for Voodoo, because... durr, it's her name. I have the Mommy Fortuna one for the same reason. (Yes, my stripper name comes form The Last Unicorn.)

We got imp's ears of Dee, Jack, Elegba, the Witches Garden, Hellcat, and Herbert West. A lot of these are from the 'Bewitching Brews' collection. Jack is the perfect October scent: it's pumpkin and spice. Dee is named after John Dee, and it smells about how you'd expect.

They gave us a whole pile of free imps too: Oleander Honey, Iago, Kali, Prunella, Nanshee, Ekhinda, Antony, and French Love. The latter two aren't really our speed, so I'm going to give them away to someone who likes them.

BPAL oils are fabulous. They generally do smell like the descriptions, and they last for ages since you only need a dab. I think of them as magic oils, I really do. It's the final step before I go out the door - what am I going to smell like? It sets the tone!

There's a chapter in the Satanic Witch that's all about picking perfumes your target likes over what you like... and fuck that noise, unless you're deliberately trying to woo someone. Sometimes I want to smell like a dead magician, dammit!

My stank doth be Enochian, bitch.

O is for Others

This post is an entry in the Pagan Blog Project.

A few months ago, my washer broke. There was a loud THUD noise, and then black gooey stuff started oozing out from inside of it all over my floor. It stank to high heaven. I assumed it was Amityville related, but just to be sure I google-searched it and found out it was probably oil from the motor.

I did not know how to fix the washing machine, even though there we some tutorials online for replacing the 'belt' or whatever else.

Instead, I called my landlord. ...who called someone else. And now I have a new washer/dryer.

As usual, all this ugly bullshit rambling is to illustrate a point: sometimes, you have to pay someone to do something for you. Whether you can't do it yourself, or simply don't have time, you need to ask someone other than yourself for help. There's no shame in this, either.

So, what if you're the washer mechanic? What if the positions are reversed, and other people are coming to you?

There is (or should be, anyway) etiquette when dealing with this eventuality. There may be a little bit more leeway if you wind working solely on the behalf of friends and family, but if you start accepting payment then you really need to make sure you act professionally so that you don't wind up with a reputation for being a jackass. Jackassery hurts your business.

If someone comes to you for divination or magic work, chances are they're in some kind of trouble. Most people who are not themselves practitioners don't just 'check in' with the universe that way; if it's not a birthday party or something, they're coming to you for advice on a problem.

Whether you like it or not, agreeing to help with that problem means you are mixing up your own life with someone else's. No, you're not marrying them, but you are going to act as a counsellor and even influence their life's events. You shouldn't do that if you can't do so in a respectful manner.

Speaking of that influence thing... This isn't so much an issue if you're doing divination, since divination by nature tends to work as an advice column, but if you agree to work magic on someone else's behalf? You may want to do a little checking in yourself.

We often only hear one side of a story. The absent party cannot defend herself, and there may be details unknown or glossed over. Your client is going to be biased (same as you) and so if you're undertaking anything heavy on the behalf of someone else you probably want to make sure its justified.

I don't believe that we take on all the 'karma' of our clients. But here's the thing - if you're working on behalf of someone, you're not entirely blameless. If something backfires, you're the one who is going to get the brunt of the explosion because you were the one who actually cast the spell. That just seems to be how it works. So, again: you'll want to look for any obvious "DO NOT DO!" signs.

Speaking of keeping your eyes open for warnings... you'll want to do that on a mundane level, too. People are strange. (When you're a stranger...) Sometimes that's not so bad, but other times...

Obviously, you should never do work for anyone who makes you feel uncomfortable or threatened, whether that be physically, sexually or emotionally. Money's not worth abuse. You need to know when to say no, and how to mean it. There are also people who you simply cannot help, as much as you might want to - their problems may be beyond your scope of expertise, or they may be suffering from mental illnesses. If a client is going to hurt herself or others? Don't work magic, don't do a reading: report that shit to the proper authorities. Chances are you're not trained to deal with a genuine psychiatric emergency, so don't fuck with that situation as you'll do more harm than good.

Most of your clients won't be suicidal - but they may be upset. As I said before, if someone's looking for a spell, they're probably in the middle of some shit. It will benefit both you and the client if you can really sit down and discuss exactly what it is they want, and why. This lets you get a better understanding of the situation, so you can craft a better solution.

Always be polite. Always be respectful. Be honest, and pay attention. Don't talk up your abilities, and be prepared to have to explain what the client can realistically expect from you.  Some people honestly do expect you to work a miracle while they themselves sit on the couch and take no action to back up their desires.

For some more advice regarding counselling clients that can be adapted to spellwork, I recommend 'Professional Tarot: The Business of Reading, Consulting and Teaching' by Christine Jette.

N is for Newb

This post is brought to you by the Pagan Blog Project.

Go to any pagan message board, and chances are the most active threads are in the "beginner" sections. There's a good reason for this - whenever you're new to anything, you have a million questions and boundless enthusiasm. So you look for answers, advice, and tips on how not to make a total tit of yourself.

Which you'll fail at. Consistently.

I've talked before about how amazingly dumbassed I was when I was first setting out to learn magic. In my defense, I was a teenager and all teenagers are inherently dumbassed even when they're really smart. That's the whole fun part of being a teenager.

But here's the other thing... old farts can be needlessly hard on beginners. It's like you're so desperate to prove that you're no longer a newb on the path that you develop a sort of jaded attitude about them. "Oh, you read Silver Ravenwolf? Don't you know she's like, full of crap?"

I'm guilty of doing this myself in my twenties.

Deborah over at Charmed I'm sure just posted a short piece on how many of us witches got our start, and honestly it should be required reading for anyone who would rather pretend their early years never happened.

Celts = DRAGONS!

While I'm currently considered a complete occult nerd, it certainly wasn't always so. Like I've admitted in the past, I wanted to learn about real magic because of The Craft. I read Buckland, yeah, but I also read Silver Ravenwolf and DJ Conway. That's bottom of the barrel in terms of actual facts, right there, people. 'Celtic Magic' was watered-down Wicca 101 with Celtic god names pasted overtop.But I owned it! I read it! I totally used some of the shit in it, I'm sure!

My first altar was a cardboard box I painted black. Oh, and we painted a silver pentagram on top. My incense came from the dollar store and smelled like burning diapers, and my candles were from the same place and tended to be scented. My first 'athame' was a letter opener. But you know, as ghetto as all my supplies were? I tried damn hard with them.

You can't learn everything at once. You learn through education - which takes time - and through experience - which takes even more time. Along the way you might buy into somethings that you later regard as bullshit, but that's okay. Everyone does. (I mean, lots of people apparently thought feathered mullets were a good idea in the 80s, you know?)

So. Newbs. The thing to remember, I think, is that yes, you should always use the manners your mama taught you but if someone's giving you sass just because you didn't knwo something? Remember that once upon a time they were making the exact same mistakes as you.

Ain't nobody born with all the answers.

M is for Movies

A belated entry for the Pagan Blog Project.

I watch a lot of horror movies. And I mean a lot; I was for years the video clerk who would pray for teenagers to come in an ask, "what's a REALLY scary movie?" so that I could mind rape them with cinema.

Consequently, I have seen a lot of witch movies, or movies with occult or pagan themes. There are the obvious ones, of course: The Craft, Practical Magic, the Witches of Eastwick, Bewitched, the Wicker Man, Hocus Pocus, Skeleton Key, Rosemary's Baby, maybe even Suspiria... You can basically expect these films to be on everyone's 'witch list' for Halloween viewing.

So I'm not going to bother talking about them. You've probably already seen them, and have your own opinion on how accurate or irritating they are. No, I'm going to talk about some of the more often overlooked cinematic, er, gems...

Rawhead Rex:

Based on a short story by Clive Barker, this is the tale of a bloodthirsty pagan god that goes on a killing spree in a small Irish village. The monster (er, god?) is basically a giant dick. No, I'm serious. In the short story it's the male principle run amok, a concept that's not really made explicit in the film, which is more concerned with having what looks like a wrestler in a rubber monster suit attack people. Also it's (spoiler) defeated by Vagina Power. No, I'm not kidding.

Why you should watch it: You'll never see another movie where a priest begs for a golden shower from a giant dick monster. I promise.

Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation:

The first Silent Night, Deadly Night was about a killer Santa. The sequel is famous for forever making "garbage day!" something funny. The third... was that the one with the guy's brain exposed? Doesn't matter. The FOURTH movie in the series has jack-shit to do with Santa and instead is about a coven of witches who have sex with giant bugs on Christmas as part of some pagan worship thing.

At least, I think. I saw this movie when I was in my late teens, and I remember being fucking outraged. So naturally now I would punch an old lady to get my hands on a copy of the bloody thing. To make sure I didn't hallucinate the whole bugsex thing, I just went to the Wikipedia article (I love the internet) and saw that, nope, I was right. Here's some quotes:

"...She settles down on the kitchen table to eat dinner and flips open the book Fima loaned her. The page she randomly arrives at is titled "The Spiral: Symbol of Women's Power". Kim glances at her plate of noodles and notices that they are arranged in a vague spiral...
The page she randomly lands on is titled "The Fire of Lilith" and it depicts a woman whose lower half is engulfed in flames. Kim glances down at the plate of spaghetti on the floor. The spaghetti is now arranged in a flame-like pattern."

I have no memory of the mystic spaghetti motif, but I think I love it.

Basically the film winds up being about Lilith, the 'first wife' of Adam, and female empowerment. ...with bugs. I don't know, but seeing that Brian Yuzna directed it? It suddenly makes more sense.

Why you should watch it: So you can tell me where to find a copy.

Angel Heart:

One of the best supernatural films ever made. Hands down. Not only is Mickey Rourke still hot in it, but it's one of those movies that's not ruined by the fact that Robert DeNiro is so obviously the devil. It's an old-fashioned detective story that incorporates voodoo and occultism in a very clever manner.

Angel Heart is a slow-burn of a film that pays off beautifully at the end, one of those movies that will stick with you long after you've watched it.

Why you should watch it: Besides Lisa Bonet's tits? There's little nods to famous occultists (one of the characters goes by the alias 'Edward Kelly') and a pretty neutral depiction of some voodoo/hoodoo practices. (The DVD includes interviews with practitioners, which is kind of cool.)


Haxan:

God bless Sweden. They gave us Alexander Skarsgard, and they gave us this movie. It's a silent film (making it perfect to put on at Halloween parties for atmosphere) that explores witchcraft through the ages up until what was then modern times. It's described as documentary, but I feel that term must be used loosely, mostly because of this guy:

The film covers a lot of the material from the Malleus Maleficarum, and discusses some of the brutal methods used by the witch hunters of the time. It also has crazed nuns, which is always a bonus.

Why you should watch it: Uhm. DUH.

Season of the Witch:

Not to be confused with the shitty Nick Cage film, this is one of George A. Romero's other low-budget horror films, back before he decided to do all-zombies, all-the-time. It's not going to win any awards or anything, and the budget was clearly minuscule, but for all of that this remains a little known horror gem for fans of witchery.

The plot centres around an unsatisfied middle-aged housewife who falls into witchcraft, which is the 'hip' new thing in her circle of friends. The film was originally titled Hungry Wives in the US, and Jack's Wife in the UK. This is actually very telling, as the story is really one of a woman's loneliness as search for meaning outside of her role of wife and mother.

Why you should watch it: It has a pretty decent coven initiation scene, what with the nudity and cords and scourge. It also has a few things to say about the mainstreaming of the occult.

And the hair and fashion is faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar out, man.


Black Death:

Speaking of Nick Cage... fuck that guy.  This is like a GOOD version of the recent Season of the Witch. The motherfucking bubonic plague, Sean Bean as a badass with a sword (hey, he plays it well!) a necromancer, and a conflicted priest. The movie is violent as hell and just as bleak.

It concerns a group of witchfinders sent to investigate a village that is miraculously free of the plague. Once there, they find that all the villagers have turned their backs on god... and seem to have been rewarded.

Why you should watch it: Sean Bean! Guys get hacked up with swords! THE PLAAAAAAGUE!


Alright... on that note, I guess we can't ignore the elephant in the room any longer... the just plain WRONG remake of The Wicker Man. The original is a near-perfect classic that's a blend of "what the fuck, is this a musical?" with outright unease, a favourite among horror fans and neo-pagans alike. The remake?

The remake is like if your mom died and your dad married a crack whore and they had sex on your mom's grave. WITH BEES. It is one of the single most misogynistic films I have EVER seen, and the fact it was made so recently makes me sick.

Also: BEES.

Goodnight, everybody.

M is for Music

This post is for the Pagan Blog Project.


Music possesses its own special magic. I can prove this, and I can prove this easily. Here's what you do:

Find a bunch of drunk people.
Put Journey on the stereo.
Watch all the drunk people stop what they're doing to wail, "just a small town girl... livin in a looooooooonely woooooooooooooorld..."

Presto.

Music can take a person back in time - I think everyone has a song or two that reminds them powerfully of an event, or a person, or even just a period in their life.

On a personal note, there are certainly certain albums that remind me of certain times in my life. A few of these are inextricably tied to magic for me. Probably the most amusing of these is Halo 19: the NIN album With Teeth.  This album's release coincided with my first forays into Chaos Magic and some more Ceremonial elements. I used to practice doing the Qabalistic Cross to Beside You In Time. I remember, too, walking along the railroad tracks by my then apartment and finding someone had scrawled the lyrics to "Right Where It Belongs" along the side of the tracks themselves:

What if all the world's inside of your head,
Just creations of your own?
Your devils and your Gods, all the living and the dead
And you're really all alone?

Nothing, really. Kind of adolescent. Except when you're learning exactly how fragile reality really is, it seems like the universe is sending you secret messages... and even song lyrics act as a decoder ring.

Music can lift you up or make you cry. It invigorates the soul.

I'm not going to discuss 'pagan' music, mostly because it's not a genre I would even know how to classify. Celtic music? Metal? New Age shit with dolphins? Chanting? Pan pipes? I have no idea. So rather than dissect that, I am going to instead address various ways I myself have used music as magic, and a few ideas I plan to try.

Club Trance

When I was in my twenties, I was a pretty dedicated club goer. Just about every week, you could catch me out at the Best of British night when it still existed, or at our local goth night, Skank. The latter especially was good for working magic, because industrial music it must be said is rather repetitious. The beat is heavy, the words don't matter, and you can marathon boogie until you're sweating balls and your brain shuts up. This is the perfect environment to fire sigils in. You can even make them up on the back of bar napkins or club flyers.

iPod Tarot

I've only done this once, and I'd love to do it again: you assign every card a song, and put them together in a playlist. When I did it, I only assigned the Major Arcana as that felt like a big enough project to start. Then instead of doing a traditional reading, I'd hit shuffle, ask a question, and hit play.

This is not only fun to do, but it forces you to consider the card meanings a little more closely.

Elemental Classification

Voodoo and I actually ran across this one in Gothcraft, which we were reading and mocking while looking after my mom's shop. Credit where credit is due - the idea is cool. Basically, the author suggested taking your favourite bands and classifying them by element, or taking each element and trying to find bands that seem to represent it.

If you classified a song for each element, you could have a musical quarter call.

Dance, Magic Dance

Dance as devotional seems obvious, at least to me. There are deities associated with both music and dance, and others beside who seem to appreciate the gesture. I've heard of people 'dancing their totems' - working themselves into an ecstatic state and then channelling the spirits of animals. I've both seen and tried myself aspecting deities the same way. (Aspecting being sort of like possession-lite.)

One thing I've yet to try, but plan to, is working an actual spell into a performance. If you could direct the energy of the crowd into your goal, it would be pretty spectacular. Maybe with a sigil, or a symbolic act. It's something I need to think on more.

And on that note...

Lust in Spaaaaace!

This Sunday is the Sin City Lust in Space event. Our friends Melody Mangler and Little Miss Risk are going to be there - modelling and preforming respectively - and probably several others that I'll drunkenly go, "omg how are yooooooooooooou?!" at.

So Voodoo and I went out today to do a little costume shopping. Voodoo is doing a sort of steampunk thing, and of course she was smart enough to draw up a sketch before we left the house. I did no such thing - I was trusting to fate that I'd find something. Really the only thing I knew I wanted was an eyepatch. The rest of the concept for my outfit was something like, "Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg meets the Borg meets Bladerunner meets steampunk space Nazi sort of... thing."

So, like I said, I was basically hoping something would work out.

After some neat hits at Deluxe Junk (there were these awesome pants that had one leg that was a corset-lace up the back - made my ass look awesome, but they were reeeeeally low cut) we popped into Deadly Couture. They had the leftovers from their 50% off sale, and hidden in there I found this shirt. For thirty bucks. And it fit my boobs. SOLD.

We stopped at Dressew and picked up some other stuff we needed, which on my case included these ultra cheap 'steampunk' goggles. I've cut them in half, painted the cheap plastic with metallic black nailpolish, and am gluing this weird metal doodlybob to the lens. With some new elastic, it will then become my fucked up cyber eyepiece.

I have a feeling by the time I finish this outfit I'll look sort of like Lady Gaga. This is not a negative. In my head, this means Voodoo is probably like, part of the rebel alliance in our galaxy, and I'm one of the baddies. I'll take pictures, natch.

No idea what's covering my ass yet, though.

Survey Says...

Over on I Heart Pentacles, there's a nice little post answering some questions about magic/paganism etc. Being the lazy sod that I am, I've stolen them to answer myself. But again, all credit for the questions goes there, so go read the original.

Retro.

 "I wanted to be in the Midnight Society even more than I wanted to be in the Babysitter's Club!" - conversation with Voodoo this morning.


Then and now pictures of the cast of The Craft. Saw this on Jezebel this morning. They honestly don't look much different. Not even Skeet. Witchcraft!

Sunday Linkage

Over on Strategic Sorcery, Jason has done a neat little post about shit we shouldn't care so much about.

Gordon at Rune Soup reminds us it's Jack Parson's death day today! I learned about Parsons from the DisInfo Book of Lies years ago. Sometime after that I got drunk on free wine in an Italian restaurant (seriously, it was just on the table and neither I not my roommates paid for it) and proceeded to babble on about the Anti-Christ being a rocket scientist.

Because that is how I roll, people.

I also roll as a Sideshow Geek at Le Cabaret Du Passe. Oh yes.

I am so going to love being old.

I can't remember if I've posted my love for Advanced Style here before.

So I'll do it now. Best fashion blog ever.

L is for Let It Go

"Let it go man, shop class was a long time ago! It's over!"
- Mike, MST3K (Why Study Industrial Arts)

I don't hold grudges, generally speaking. I have a wicked temper, but it's the sort where I get extremely angry, but can be melted by a heartfelt apology. I'm the sort of person who will give others a second chance. And a third. Mmmmmaybe a fourth.

MARTY PUT DOWN THAT SPORTS ALMANAC!

What I do hold onto, however, is every single stupid fucking thing I wish I'd done differently. I sometimes find myself remembering events from grade school with genuine embarrassment and regret. If Doc Brown stepped out of a fucking Delorean in those moments and was like, "hop in!" I probably really would ask him to take me back to 1992 so I could tell little!me "YOUR JEGGINGS ARE ON BACKWARDS, GIRL! DON'T GO TO SCHOOL LIKE THAT!"

I think everyone has certain things they have a difficult time getting out of their minds.  Normally, it's just a minor annoyance (barring some kind of serious neurosis anyway) and it won't do anything except waste your time.

Unless you can't let go of things when you do magic.

One of the first things that was impressed upon me as a young witch was the need to put spells right the hell out of your mind as soon as you were done casting them. The reason for this can best be summed up using art as an example: every artist knows that when you're working on a piece there comes a point where if you keep fiddling with it, you'll fuck it up. For whatever reason, this seems to apply to certain types of magic too.

Sigils are perhaps the best example of 'set it and forget it' magic. The sigil is constructed, charged, fired... and that's it. It is recommended by pretty much every article or book on chaos magic written to date that as soon as you are done firing that thing you should distract your brain with something else. The same basic idea applies to pretty much any kind of spell that's not designed to be worked over a longer period of time.

Spells that are a longer working - like candle magic that can't be done in one evening - obviously can't quite be put out of mind in the same manner. Still, they seem to work best if while the candle is being worked you pray over it or charge it... and then forget about it when you're not consciously doing anything with it.

Regardless of the type of spell, it is important to let go of the outcome of the spell once it's done. Essentially once you cast that spell you've lobbed a ball across the grand tennis court of the universe... and you have to wait for it to hit it back. Obsessing over it just seems to function like yelling obscenties at the other tennis player.

The other thing every magician has to learn about letting go is very, very simple: sometimes you have to give up. There are times when you're hellbent on getting a particular result, and you work towards that goal with spell after spell after spell... this can be an endless cycle. And that, like wanting to steal the Delorean to spare your eleven-year-old self some teasing, is a waste.

When you are doing magic, a time limit can be an invaluable thing. Before you even begin your working, set a firm date. This tactic is something I've heard repeated on the Lucky Mojo Hoodoo Rootwork Hour, and it's damn solid advice. When you're in the grip of some obsessive desire, you're often not approaching things in a sane manner. People can and have wasted YEARS on a goal that clearly just wasn't about to be obtained. Don't be that guy.

You have to learn when to let go.


This was another post for the Pagan Blog Project.

This sums up all my vacations, really.

L is for Living Magically

 The observant will notice I missed last week's PBP. This is because I was at the Burlesque Hall of Fame weekend in Las Vegas. There will be a post on that (possibly several) but for right now, simply know that when my sibling and I walked out of YVR airport we both inhaled the damp Pacific Northwest air and sighed with relief. "It's shitty weather!" we cried happily.

The day after our return home, we were unpacking and generally just acclimating to not having to put on false eyelashes while downing dollar margaritas. At some point I turned to Voodoo and said, "you know, it's a relief to be back where all my fucking witch supplies are!" She laughed and agreed.

I didn't even bring a deck of cards with me to BHOF. (This is actually genius strategy if you don't want to wind up doing drunken readings in a hotel hallway at five am.) I certainly didn't bring candles or powders. These things aren't necessary for magic, but you do sort of get used to having them on hand for when drama erupts.

The exact context I've forgotten, but a while back something or other happened, and I said to my sister, "oh, we'll do such and such - let me get the rosemary" or something to that effect. I remember though that I paused and looked at her, and said, "...dude, do you ever wonder what NORMAL people do in these situations?" And she shrugged, baffled.

It's become a joke, now. One of us will go for the spell cupboard and do our very best Tommy Tiernan impression, shouting, "I have no idea what the rest of you do with your fuckin time!"

This isn't to get all witchier-than-thou on your asses. It's more that in the past year I've come to the realisation that somewhere along the line magic stopped being a special thing to me. I've been practising, off and on, for something like fifteen years. That means I am old. It also means I've gone through phases of intense study and utter boredom - I think a lot of people who don't join covens or lodges wind up doing much the same: you fall into a rut, and start fishing about for anything new and sparkly to reignite your interest. Some of the sparklies stick, others don't, and you generally putter along because you're clearly too stupid to give up on magic entirely.

Well. I'm here to tell you that if you putter along long enough, there will come a day when you go on vacation and realise you've spent nearly a week without making a floorwash, talking to dead people, lighting candles, or reading a fortune... and it feels fucking weird.

And this is the goal for my fifties.

When I was younger I felt living a magical life was something you worked hard at. Because things were so fresh and new, it was almost overwhelming - I wanted to be a witch, dammit! Not later. Now! I wanted people to have a problem and all I would say, "aha, let me check my spell book my dear, and I will give you this candle and these herbs" like they did in books and the movies.

The reality involves more gin, but other than that it seems I've accidentally achieved my adolescent dream.

I do not rise each day and greet the four directions. I don't have a cat. I don't make a conscious effort to be witchy at home or at the office or even on stage. But shit creeps in. A thousand small details that I don't generally stop to think about, each of them magical in nature.

That is what I think living magically is: when you get to the point where you're just living, and magic is as natural as breathing, as ingrained as putting on the coffee when you wake up.

And it's shockingly attainable. I think most of you know that already, huh?

wtf pills

I totally have a rash. This means I must stop taking my seizure med, Dilantin, at once. And go to the doctor tomorrow. You know, a few hours before we leave for Las Vegas for the BHOF.

AWESOME.

Honestly, I'm sort of happy - Dilantin sucks balls. I spent an hour bawling today because I couldn't pick something to make for dinner. That's so not normal for me. It makes me hella drowsy and dizzy, and it's just... yeah. Not a fan.

So we'll see what the doctor says tomorrow morning. In the meantime, no more pills.

The Girls.

Today after rehearsal we went to the mall.

Voodoo and I love the mall. I tell people this sometimes and they look at me with such confusion that you'd think I just told them I was born with a conjoined twin that still itches my ass for me. But here's the thing - we grew up in the Bible Belt suburbs. We lived in a town where if you weren't part of a youth group, there wasn't a whole hell of a lot to do as a teenager. So, even as gother-than-thou little misfits, we wound up hanging out at the mall a lot.

Also: we like shopping.

So. The main goal for today was to get my hair trimmed by our cousin Michelle, who works in the mall. Secondary goals included getting some decent flats and false eyelashes because we leave for the Burlesque Hall of Fame on Wednesday. And, you know, since we were there ANYWAY... may as well have the whole mall experience. This includes the food court.

But I'm not here to tell you about my addiction to fried chicken. As I said, we were looking for shoes. In the mall, there's this shop that we refer to as "the hooker shoe store" because it sells ridiculous stripper-esque shoes. This is where you can go if you need a pair of five-inch stilettos where the heel is made out of fake bullets. It's glorious. Anyway, while my sister looked in vain for anything in a size five, I perused the silver shoes because I need a pair just in case for Vegas. (I'm an alternate in the group number.) One of the girls who worked there asked if I needed help, and then interrupted herself as she stared at my chest.

"I'm sorry - are those REAL?"

I told her, yes. And when she asked I told her my cup size. (Which is an I in European sizing.) She promptly called over the other girl working there to ogle my tits. Which sounds really bad, but she was awfully sweet about it. She then went on about her own desire to have a boob job, and was horrified to find I have considered reduction surgery. I told her just to get fat if she wanted bigger ones.

Later, buying insanely colourful underwear, another salesgirl asked about my chest size. (This made more sense since we were in LaSenza, at least.) She too was torn between envy and horror.

I don't take particular pride on my breasts. They're just THERE, getting in the way more often than not. I don't dislike them (usually) but when this sort of thing happens I can't help but be amused.

Happily, I manage to fit my big ol' boobs into a stunning dress after that. I'm wearing the hell out of this on Thursday night when Voodoo preforms I think. Yay!

K is for Kitchen WTF

Another entry in the Pagan Blog Project

The Kitchen Witch. I feel like somewhere along the way this iconic image went from being a real thing to being some twit with a box of Betty Crocker muffin mix and a wand. Sort of like how I'm sure once upon a time Etsy actually had awesome hand-made crafty shit but is now a shitshow of remarkable WTFery.

Now, I'm certain there really are kitchen witches out there - people who are intimately familiar with the gardens they grow outside their homes or in window boxes, and who if you went to their house could whip you up a potion in three minutes flat that would cure your cold and restore your sexual potency. People who are basically Sandra Bullock in Practical Magic. (And fuck you, I think we all wish we were Sandra Bullock sometimes.) These people are living their quiet lives all across the world, doing magic mundanely and maybe posting arty photos of their peach cobbler on Tumblr.

And then there's the microwave set.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not about to mock people for being shitty cooks. I didn't cook for YEARS. I had to ask my sister how to make mashed potatoes. (Which I intended to eat a pot of. With nothing else. Yeah, I was like twenty-two, I was a pig.) I fucked up instant coffee. It was sad and pathetic, and I think the most we ever used the minuscule kitchen in our first Vancouver apartment was the time we ran out of laundry tokens and so hung all our underwear in it to dry.

So I'm not going to point and laugh if you burn water.

It's a brew!

I will point and laugh if you burn water and then call it a spell, though.

Look. We look silly enough, you guys. To normal people, magic itself is out there enough that you look like a bit of a ninny on a good day, what with your candles and arm gestures and all. But to then claim you're stirring love and good health into a pot of spaghetti-os... Yeah. No.

Kitchen witchery is not JUST intent. Yes, intent is very important in magic, but it's not the only thing. If it were, I'd be rich and surrounded by sex bitches right now, who would be gently filing the calluses off my feet. Kitchen witchery is all about well, shit you do in the kitchen, right? Cooking, making home remedies, that sort of oldschool wholesome thing. If someone tells me they're making gingerbread cookies with menstrual blood in them to bewitch a lover, alright, that seems like kitchen witchery. If someone is just thinking really hard at a box of oreos... not so much.

These examples I hope illustrate the disconnect that seems to go on with a certain type of people. It's almost like they're not Brit Trad Wiccans, they're not Recons, and they find Chaos Magic too anarchic. They're basically eclectic Wiccan-esque in terms of belief, but it's too much effort to bother much with the witchcraft side of things. So they look around for something that sounds legitimate and that they can easily say "well, sure, I do this daily" about. And we all need to eat, which means we all need to cook.

So. You're on your pagan message board or whatever, and someone asks "what the fuck are you?" and a whole bunch of people go, "kitchen witch!" And the explanation is that they think stuff while they cook.

I dunno, ya'll. I'm all for simple spellwork, but that just seems fucking lazy.

Grandma would not approve.
image from www.theblackcatcloset.com