trepanning?

So. I had a seizure on Thursday morning. This would be more exciting news if it were my first, but it's my fourth so as sick as it sounds I'm kinda old hat at them by now. I bit my tongue up, but not as bad as the first time - it's still a bit numb and weird feeling at the tip today, but the side seems mostly okay.

The doctor put me on Dilantin. I'm not sure I'm thrilled about it - it's played merry hell with my balance, which means I actually left rehearsal on Sunday in tears. Oh, yeah. It also seems to be playing merry hell with my emotional state as well. So that's fun. I need to make an appointment with my regular neurologist and see if I can't maybe switch to the meds I was on in Dublin instead.  Being seizure free is nice, but I'd also like to be relatively sane and not prone to bursting into tears over old Degrassi episodes.


Hey! You know what?! It's almost summer! That means it's time to start thinking about Halloween! No, seriously. Here, have a post to put you in the mood prematurely.

J is for Journaling

For the Pagan Bog Project.

"The Record is both chart and log to the bold Sea-Captains of The Voyage Marvellous." - Aleister Crowley

If there's one thing I would say you need to do in order to practice magic, regardless of whether it's high or low, that thing would be this: you need to keep a magical diary.


Why keep a journal logging your magical practice? What's the difference between that and a Book of Shadows or a grimoire? What format works best for your diary, and what exactly should you be recording? 


Fuck, you ask a lot of questions.


A magical journal is an important tool for the would-be magician, as it is the best way with which to keep track of your workings. It's the easiest way there is to monitor successes and failures, and if you are diligent in recording all that you do it makes analysing the failures much easier. If you preform a ritual and the intended goal is not reached, you can look back through your diary and see if you can substitute one element for another, then try again and record those results. 


You can gauge your improvements easier when they're written in black and white, and over time a magical journal will reveal your 'high points' - times when your energy soars and your work comes easier.  This is good to know, since then for important workings you can better time them to coincide with these periods.


A magical diary is not, in my opinion, quite the same as a Book of Shadows or grimoire - the latter two are more like instruction manuals than anything else, while a diary is a personal collection of notes. Your diary can certainly provide material for your B.O.S. in the form of spells that have been successful. Those you can copy into a notebook or add to a scrapbook or however you want to do it.


Speaking of formats... Although I am a fan of online journals (obviously) I do feel that just plain old pen and paper works best for magic diary keeping. For me personally, even if a journal entry is set to 'private' on a blog, I find that I still write as though someone else is going to read it. I can be more honest and raw in a physical book. 


As an added advantage, a notebook can go almost anywhere... even a graveyard at midnight in the middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere. My laptop's not that durable, and my phone sucks balls. If I'm staked out somewhere weird, a pen and a flashlight will work better for my needs.


Now, as for what you should record? The answer to that is simple: everything. No, really. Everything you can think of, anyway. And if you can't think of anything, well, you're shit out of luck.


Except not, since here's a list to get you started. You're welcome.


Time
Date
Moon Phase
Planetary Phases (if you know them)
Place
Ingredients
Tools
Emotional state before, during and after the working
Any occurring phenomena


Once you're done your spell, you should also be careful to record any potential results. This could be months later, so you can see why settling into the habit of keeping your journal regularly is important. Record good results and shitty ones, or the fact that there were none at all.


Keeping a magical journal helps prevent you from making the same mistakes over and over. It also gives you a rich personal history of your practice. Whether you're working in a group tradition or entirely on your own, it's exhilarating to look back on your early rituals and see exactly how far you've come. Hindsight also reveals many synchronicities and unusual events that at the time were overlooked because you were too busy trying to keep your head above the water. 

In short, a magical journal is truly one of the most important tools to keep in your arsenal.

Linky links.

Couple of things to kick off your Monday.

How time stands still in women's magazines. I was never a big magazine girl myself - I bought a few issues of YM and Seventeen when I was fourteen, but quickly decided to boycott them. My rule was "if someone else has one, I'll read it, but I won't give them my money." That way I could enjoy the 'Say Anything!' stories in the back, enjoy the fashions (or mock them) and still be snotty about not buying into the whole anti-female thing. This is a rule I still abide by today. I don't buy the glossies, for many of the reasons the article there touches on, but I'll flip through em when I get my hair done.

The Atrum Traba. Completely unrelated! But a damn good post. If you're mucking about with spirits, you ought to know how to do this stuff. While we're on the topic, if you haven't read Lon Milo DuQuette's Low Magic and My Life With the Spirits yet, you should. The former has a wonderful example of the exact technique the Bad Witch is talking about, and by wonderful I also mean hilarious.

Also! A roundup by Blue Morris of the media coverage of the VIBF!

J is for Jewellery

Another entry for the Pagan Blog Project.


Pagans like jewellery.

This much is apparent at any sort of pagan festival, or any metaphysical-oriented store. Rings, bracelets and pendants - oh the pendants! Gemstones, pentagrams, ankhs, triskelions, goddesses, fairies... as a group, we're mad for hanging shit around our necks.

Back in the days when my entire wardrobe was black, I wore approximately five pounds of jewellery at a time. Almost every finger had a ring on it, and I'd be clanking about with several necklaces at a time. I had one very small pentagram that I bought at Spencer's Gifts for ten bucks, which was accidentally tasteful of me considering I could have got one the size of a small hubcap. Less so was the inverted crucifix with a wolf's head on it, that I swear I bought at Claire's or one of those other chain teenager-aimed jewellery stores. I think the pentagram is still kicking around, but alas, not the ugly wtf wolf cross.

These days, I don't wear as many necklaces. (For one thing, if they're too long they get trapped in my cleavage, and since I'm short most chains are indeed too long.) I also don't tend to wear much overtly 'pagan'  jewellery anymore. I still have a lovely pendant that is a crescent moon encircling a pentagram that my mother and sister gave to me years ago, but I couldn't tell you the last time I actually wore it. I have another pentagram that I bought mostly because perched on top of it is a crow - the piece is lovey, but again, I don't wear it often. I almost think I'd prefer it as a pin instead of a necklace.

I own two other pieces of crow jewellery. I have a miniature skull that is one half of a pair - I gave the other to my sister. I also own a a glass pendant that is about two inches long and very thin that has a crow painted or something on it in black. These are pieces I consider to be magical to me now, because they remind me of unbreakable bonds and the things I truly love.

I still own a lot of rings. I don't wear as many at one time, but I do love them. Here I feel I can indulge my desire for talismanic objects a bit more easily, as there's gems galore available in ring form that won't clash with my outfit. Currently, I have four rings that I cycle through for magical purposes: moonstone, blue onyx, obsidian, and a blue tiger's eye. I find rings work better for me magically as well because they're on my hands, which are not only more visible (I don't actually look down at my tits very often) but also what I generally use to direct energy (which I certainly don't use my tits for).

My jewellery doesn't identify me as pagan right away, and honestly I don't see any reason to change that. For one thing, anyone who is even moderately perceptive can probably figure out my spitirual slant by looking at the giant freaking arm tattoo I have of two witches making rain. For another thing... I just don't think it's my style anymore. Unless I find a replica of Margaret Krusemark's necklace in Angel Heart. I'd wear the shit out of that thing.

So. Religious symbols, magical tools, or just pretty shiny things - or hell, all three! -is it any wonder witchy people love their jewellery?

Today I decided to check out the 'fitness centre' at the pool near my house. I had been warned by a friend that it was small, and that I would have to fight elderly Chinese women for the elliptical machine. Neither of these warnings were exaggerated.

Yup, just a morning spent with me and the over-sixty crowd! And holy shit do those women have staying power - they get on a machine and fuck you, they are getting in their maximum half hour! A woman older than my mom officially could out-treadmill me. Anyway, I finally managed to snag the stationary bike, which for some reason was outfitted with the most uncomfortable seat in the universe. I'm talking the banana-seat-bike you had when you were eleven and you fell on it once and made your crotch bleed. THAT seat.

What I'm trying to say is my nether regions hurt now. Not my actual crotch, but like... if you cross your legs and stick your hand between your legs and feel like, right where your butt starts? There! Ugh, the pain.


Tonight Voodoo and I watched 'Ghost Adventures' which we thought was a parody show but is not. There was a Salem episode, so we took bets on how long it would take for Christian Day to appear onscreen. We were both wrong - he didn't show up until a whole sixteen minutes into the episode, wearing what looked like a pillowcase.

Not flattering. Just sayin'.

Monday shopping.

Today I did not have to go into the studio (I am on an on-call basis this week) and so, since the weather was good, decided to venture to Kitsilano. I needed to go to Lush to buy my face soap (I use Angels on Bare Skin) and I wanted to stop at David's Tea for more Secret Weapon.

Since I'd already taken the bus across town, I figured I may as well take the loser cruiser a few more stops and visit Banyen. See if anything new and interesting had come out. Also I needed a new notebook.

Well, I found a notebook no problem. Looked at some of the new titles - 'Spells for Tough Times' by Kerri Connor looked interesting, and I sort of poked at DuQuette's Masonry book and some sigil stuff by Frater U.D. The thing about sigils is that once you know how to do them there's no real point in reading another book on them, is there? I mean... like candle magic, it's pretty goddamn simple.

DisInfo's 'Pop! Goes the Witch' was marked down to ten bucks. Still not worth it.

I wound up just buying the journal, some beeswax candles, and a nice round soapstone incense holder since I'd just bitched about my dollar-store one. New one was a whole four bucks, and it looks much nicer.

While browsing, it occurred to me that what I really wanted was a copy of 'Wild Mind' by Natalie Goldberg. I'd started reading my father's copy the night before my grandmother's funeral. But I didn't want to pay full price for it, since it didn't seem vastly different from her other books on writing.

So. I walked down the block to Kestrel Books where I found not one but two used copies. I also found a copy of "Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation" and "Drawing Down the Spirits" by Kenaz Filan and Raven Kaldera. The latter I already own, but I can donate the used copy to my mom's store since the distributor doesn't seem to stock Filan's stuff. 



I like to check up on pagan/magic books. I suppose I do it for the same reason everyone else does - to see if something new exists to inject a little novelty or inspiration into my own practice. But very often what I wind up walking away from my shopping trips is not a new book at all, but rather a reminder that I need to inspire myself and just sit down and do the damn work.

SUPERMOON!

Hope everyone enjoyed the supermoon!

That night also happened to be the unofficial Vancouver International Burlesque Festival after-party. In celebration, Voodoo and I tried a new cocktail...

The Ward Eight.

I'd never bought bourbon before. We wound up picking Bulleit, mostly because the bottle is really nifty. Once at the party Blue Morris, visiting burlesque star Persephone and her gentleman friend expressed their approval so I guess we picked a good one. Sometimes being shallow pays off!

Blue also tried to buy our amazing travel bar off of us. Can't say I blame him. That thing is PIMP.

See the pimpness? Voodoo bought it for fifty bucks. Her boobs are sort of blocking it in this shot, but it came with plastic shot and highball glasses as well as cocktail shaker accessories. The shaker it did not come with, but we already owned one so we were well set.

"I AM Don Draper!" my sibling declared after purchase.

She is. ("HWOOOOOOOOOGHHH... what?")