Home as Temple/Temple as Home

"Every object in a Lodge should be a symbolic representation of the different aspects of force functioning upon the plane which is is intended to raise the consciousness of the candidate... Form, colour, movement, sound, and incense make their appeal to the gates of the physical senses, each of which is an analogue of the subtle senses..."

That quote is from Dion Fortune in her Esoteric Orders and Their Work from the chapter on The Use and Power of Ritual.  Most of the book is just Fortune acting superior, but that chapter at least has some points I agree with; I don't think anyone who has studied and practised magic for any length of time would disagree with the idea that the physical can influence the mental and spiritual. A ritual space induces a magical state of mind.

For most modern witches and magicians, our homes are our temples. City dwellers usually don't have the luxury of a back yard (or even a balcony) and if you live alone chances are you don't have a spare room you can dedicate solely to magic. While I do harbour fantasies of having an attic with a permanent ritual circles drawn on the floor, I don't mind having my living space function as magical space because I do feel that it helps integrate my occult practice with my day-to-day life. I am not a kitchen witch, but I understand the appeal of everyday magic that is not set apart as something lofty and 'other.'

The home, then, as temple: your decor becomes your symbolic representations. Form and colour set the emotional tone not just for the mundane but the spiritual as well.

This brings me back to my snarky post the other day about ugly couches. Artists, I think, often possess a magical mindset and so I am even more baffled by those who don't spare a thought for what their home looks like. One of my good friends has an apartment that has the feel of a haunted smoking room - you walk in and expect to be handed a brandy by Vincent Price. It's a magical house that cultivates a particular atmosphere.

It is atmosphere that's been on my mind lately, as a few people I know have moved or are planning to.  In an attempt to be helpful, and also simply because I love home decor, I've spent time looking at Gravity Interior (especially the studio apartment tags), and Tiny-Ass Apartment.

 Perhaps not shockingly, I decided to move the apartment around again last week. (The last time I did so was in the summer, which was long ago enough for my tastes.)

Moving the bed into the bedroom was an ordeal, made not at all easier by the fact that I decided to do it on my own. At one point I did wind up trapped against the wall, trying to figure out how to lower the bed frame before my arms gave out. In moving the bed I also discovered that my heater had been leaking and so rotted part of the headboard - it doesn't seem dangerous and so will have to wait until I have enough money to replace it. When I do I may get a new mattress as well, and if I do that I plan to downgrade from a queen to a double to get a few more inches space in that tiny room.

The living room now seems palatial to me. I gave my sister and her boyfriend my old dresser set in exchange for one of the Ikea wardrobes they had - their bedroom was being dominated by two of them and was not comfortable. I had worried it would do the same in my space, but after some fiddling with location I seem to have found a place for it where it doesn't look too much like a huge fridge. It helps that my apartment is predominately white with wood accents.

My apartment has an old fireplace that has been sealed up, and a little electric fireplace stove was placed there by the landlord. Mine broke a few months back and I never got around to asking it to be replaced, and with winter on the wane it seems silly to bother with it now. Instead I put some flameless candles I found on sale in there, although eventually I want to get some bigger ones. I also want to replace the old black bucket chair now by the mantle, but these are things that can wait.

The living room now has ample space for me to dance in, and I think I could even lay down a properly large circle. My sister says it feels 'airy' and I find myself pleased with that. "Form, colour, movement, sound, and incense make their appeal to the gates of the physical senses" after all, and for me an atmosphere of calm is essential.

As for Fortune's "symbolic representations of the different aspects of force" I considered what artwork to keep up, why I wanted it present, and where in the house it worked in harmony with other pieces.

I'm lucky in that I didn't have to buy a lot of new stuff - I bought some drapes, a floating shelf, some candles. It all came in under a hundred dollars and the reward is a space I feel comfortable both living in, and having others visit. It can function as studio, temple, sanctuary and library. There's space for new objects (a ram or goat skull someday, hopefully) but in the meantime it doesn't feel empty - everywhere I look I see something that reminds me of the life I want to lead.

As for Miss Frances, she's just happy she has her special chair.

A change is as good as a rest.

Miss Frances the cat has a favourite sort of toy: foam balls. She likes them because she can pick them up with her mouth, and she can bat them easily with her little clawless paws. The problem is that she would roll them under the bookshelf under my window, and so get them caught under the radiator. I'd have to pull the shelf out to rescue them. Today I was trying to find a place to move the bookshelf to that would solve this problem. Buuuut....

When you have a small apartment, there's only so many places you can put things. So I wound up moving the entire apartment around. Of course.

There also happened to be a thread on the pagan forum I frequent about "your faith in your home decor" today. I'm not a hugely religious person, but there's ample evidence of the shit I'm into all over the house.

This is where keys and spare change go. Cheap plastic tray + modge podge.

Magick Queendom/Glitterotica

Pictures of yours truly from Cabaret du Passe by the always awesome Bob Ayers:

My personal favourite.

 I even sewed that dang sleeve harness.

Reading from The Book of the Law while my sister interpretive danced it.

Check out the rest of the photo set too! The gals all looked amazing, and there's shots of Misty Greer's new collection.

I AM DECEPTION INCARNATE.

From shower to stage.

How I learned to stop worrying and killed a Smurf.

The Saturday before last I strolled into the salon my cousin works at and sat down in her chair. I was badly in need of a cut - I'd let my bob grow out a bit and the back was starting to drive me nuts. We chatted a bit and then I asked her the question I'd been considering since I'd booked the appointment.

"Can we bleach this?"

She looked me over, considered, and said, "Let me check my time."

Luck was in my favour, and soon enough I was sitting there with my scalp burning in that itchy, not-quite-horrible way anyone who has ever stripped their colour knows.

I've been dying my hair black for years - it's my default. As such I couldn't exactly go blonde, but my cousin bleached me out pretty good. (Took two sessions.) We then slathered on a deep cobalt blue.

Yes, at 32 years old, I have blue hair.

 Here are things I'd forgotten about having unnaturally-hued hair:

- Your bathtub will take on a new shade. Mine looks like I dismembered a Smurf in it.

- If you're like me and you figure you may as well go all the way, you'll spend time in the drugstore holding eyeliners up to your hair to try and match your eyebrows. (Shadows tends to have sparkle, so they're useless.)

- Your makeup routine may need adjusting. The blue tends to highlight the circles under my eyes (which I swear get worse every year) and also wash me out a bit. I actually had to buy blush.

- You will spend a few days adjusting to the looks you will naturally draw.

- Little kids will LOVE your new look.

So why did I dye my hair blue? I love being a brunette, but I've wondered since hacking my hair off what it might look like lighter. So this is basically Step One in that direction - once it grows out some, I'll talk to my cousin about taking it a bit lighter. Eventually I'd like to see if I can't rock a pale colour or possibly even a platinum. This may not work with my skin tone, but we'll see.

In the meantime, I am finally used to the bright colour in the mirror every morning. My biggest concern when I dyed it was that I would look too young - like I was trying to be a teenager again. Thus far that doesn't seem to be an issue, thankfully.

I realise that I may come off as a very shallow person, as I tend to talk about glamour and the power of visuals a lot, but I'm a Libra, what did you expect?  More seriously, I find it continually fascinating how our self image is entirely malleable and the past year has been an exercise in shifting perspective for me personally.

Every so often you need to shake up your image of yourself. 

Right, Creepy Tiki Mug?

Blue hair means relearning not to give a fuck. It means taking myself a bit less seriously. It means not settling into patterns because that's how I feel I should be. I can get locked into ideas of myself, and while they don't tend to make me miserable, they can limit my experience. Drastically altering my dumb hair colour proves, in a weirdly tangible way, that I can do shit I might not usually. I'm taking a can-can class next month. I'm seriously considering putting together an occult group. My body continues to become stronger, and my brain seems eager to catch up.

I encourage anyone reading this to do something just a little bit different with themselves, if only for a day. You might not shift your whole paradigm, but you might open yourself to the idea of such.

The Witch Post Taboo

Totally eating chicken nuggets.

Tarantino Burlesque

Photos courtesy of Greg McKinnon.

With Ariel Helvetica and Voodoo Pixie

Soooooo ironic.

I will get around to Part Two of the last New Year New You, but life has been a bit derailed this week. I'm not gonna go into why, but my attention is pretty well taken up right now.

 

Here. HIPSTER GLASSES.

 

Shawna and Mom. Not prescription.

Prescription.

 

Glory, glory.

Tarantino Burlesque sold the fuck out.

Insaaaanely awesome show. I'm the first to admit I fucked right the fuck up in the opening number, but it was extremely goofy so I'm not actually sure it mattered all that much. The stage was way, way smaller than we'd anticipated with the band up there with us, which was problematic for the group numbers, but all things considered I think we did the best we could.

The solos went super well. This was my first time working with Ariel Helvetica and holy shit you guys she is so good. She's going to be taking Cherry on Top's slot for classes at the Burlesque Centre (Cherry's very pregnant) so once I'm back at work I'm planning to attend. Girl is crazy talented.

Yours truly did better than she expected. I was shitting myself a little beforehand, not gonna lie - again, a sold out show on the Granville strip. No pressure or anything.

The audience was an odd mix of totally into it and totally ignoring you. Our darling host Trixie Hobbitses of Geekenders fame was unfortunate enough to overhear some ladies talking smack about us performers outside the dressing room, which kinda bummed me out. But then I had a few different women come up to me over the rest of the evening to tell me how much they enjoyed my act. So, you know. Take criticisms when you can... but only if they're actual critiques and not just drunken declarations of bitchery. (Also if you aren't entertained by Sweetpea McGee in a gimp costume, then your taste is questionable at best.)

Overall an amazing night, and I'm still SO thrilled to have been a part of it. Blue Morris and the band are all fucking stellar to work with.

Okay, no more gushing.


In unrelated news, I finally mounted my Hand of Glory. Found a cheap shadowbox at Michael's and got some wood stain, which I also used to darken up parts of the skin because paint was just not looking right. I'm super ghetto so I just hot-glued everything in place and hung the damn thing on the wall.

Close-up of the Hand.

Eh, crooked photo. The label reads 'Hand of Glory. Supposed hand of a criminal hanged. Found 1932, Whitby, England." The Whitby Museum actually has what is believed to be a REAL Hand of Glory.

Its new home.

House of the Rising Sun

I'm pretty sure my eyebrows are going grey.  Seriously, what the fuck? Ugh. Have some fake-Instagram-filter pictures. (You know what, though? Fuck your ugly high-res crap. My favourite camera growing up was a Polaroid, and I intend to recapture the magic digitally whenever I can.)

After Diana informed me that she thought my mantle looked a little bare ("don't you usually have more of your stuff up there?") I did some rearranging. Behold the hand of glory, shoved in a jar on a whim. Also behold my totally awesome Urban Outfitters candles. SEE THEY ARE CUTE. Also pictured: The Victorian Regina Tarot. I love this deck if only because Oscar Wilde is the Prince of Wands. (Of course he is.)

The short bookshelf. That little bottle under glass there is an extremely thoughtful gift from the gentleman known in Vancouver's more theatrical corners as Aleister Crane. It's the Elixer of Life. No, seriously. I have not opened it.

This isn't mine. It has to be returned to Clown Boss. Until she remembers this, it stays on the wall.

This greets you as you enter my apartment. Saint Death, motherfuckers. I have not lit it since my sister gave it to me. Presumably this makes me a giant chickenshit.

In other news, elderflower martinis rule.

Both me, folks.

These photos were both taken last night with the same crappy filter on my cameraphone. The first is almost directly after I got home from preforming at the Taboo Revue, and the second is probably twenty minutes later after I'd taken off the false lashes, washed my face, taken out my contacts and thrown on my PJs.

"Glamour: an illusion so real as to fool an onlooker…"


In other news, recorded a new podcast with Messrs. Quast and Harron tonight on the spookiness of winter.

Mistress of the Dork

So, as you may already know, Elvira is one of my personal heroes. Last year I had enough hair to do a decent approximation of her look, but of course I have short hair now and that is not an option. So when I decided to be a bit lazy this year and do Elvira for Halloween again, I had to go out and buy a wig.

Naturally, I could not find a single Elvira wig in Vancouver. While at the new Target in PoCo I found a 'bouffant' wig for twelve bucks that I figured I could put together with another long black one I had leftover from last year's Abracadaver. No problem, right?

Yeeeeeeeeeah, no. 

Now, for twelve bucks I wasn't expecting much, but this wig was THE mankiest goddamn thing I have ever seen, and looked absolutely nothing like the box picture. Worse, as soon as I started to try and examine the damn thing it basically unravelled. 

Undaunted, I attacked the fucking thing with scissors, rubber bands, a needle and thread, and bourbon. Eventually I tamed Sir Manks-A-Lot into a puffy base, upon which I could put the better quality long black wig. Here are fake!instagram pictures of the result. 

Save-On Scares

Seen while checking out.

This sadly falling off the wall scary plastic thing summed up most of the half-assed Halloween offerings crammed onto one shelf.

Clearly a staff member cares, though.

the witch at home.

photo by Voodoo Pixie

Crap I didn't buy.

Halloween is creeping into retail stores, especially now that 'back to school' is over with. I've taken pictures of some of the shit that caught my eye, and will continue to do so.

This devil mask was in the Dollarama. It's too much evil for $1.25

Old pregnant witch.

I guess it's steampunk? But Jesus. Also available in albino.

Season of the Witch

Fire and glass.

Hand of Glory.

"What the shit, man? You abandon your blog and then you come back with some filtered, out-of-focus photos?"

Well. Yes.

I can safely say that the past year has been very difficult on a personal level. I spent much of the winter and spring depressed; I had a falling out with my sister, and after we moved apart there were many days where I would come home from work to my beautiful new apartment and just cry.

Things improved, as they tend to do, but there have been lingering issues. I had my surgery, which I don't regret one bit but which did take a lot more out of me than I had been anticipating. My working conditions are less than ideal due to the fact that the office is a disgrace. I have been working to become a warmer person, and that too comes with its own challenges.

But now it's almost Autumn again. A full year since things started going sour, almost, and a few days ago I finally hit that point where you truly just let shit go. Not the fake "oh, I'm totally over it" thing you do where you lie to yourself, but the honest "fuck this action."

Which is good, because summer is dying.

I will be returning to more regular posting about all the usual crap, as well as extensive Halloween ridiculousness. Because that's how I roll, bitches.

The Innsmouth Familiar

I decided to buy a fish.

His name is Henry. Why?

This is why.

(Hey, you know who else loves apples...? Damn right.)