Leaving for PUF today!!

Pagan Unity Festival in Burns, TN.  Leaving my non-Pagan but still Lovely Loves at Home, to drive to the wilds of TN with my Glasgow Family.  Papa Oloyade is traveling with me, we will depart from his Momestary around 3 ish to go on Retreat.  Really so excited.
    Got my music, as their is nothing so inspiring as your own sound track of well chosen music.  my mp3 is one of my favorite magickal tools!  I have play lists for just about everything!  Back in the day, I had to make do with mix tapes.  I got upbeat nostalgia from the 80's of my youth music- from a time I was completely free and every choice, a world full of possibilities was just waiting.  I have mysterious, non english singing music, such as Dead Can Dance, Faun, Qntal, Medieval Babes, Clannad, etc.  When I want.   the comfort of human voices, but no lyrics that I can understand to get my brain caught in.  I have Trance music, both soothing new Age, such as Liquid Mind, and more peppy but still trancy trance- Transit, Logic Trance.  I have Bellydance, both classic, and World Beat-Djinn, Transglobal Underground, Oojami,.  I also have a playlist of Religious to me songs, and I really can't reccomend this category enough.  the most impartant thing is that they be religious to you.  Everyone's will be different.  Mine contains things such as "Private Revolution"  "Moondance", "Wild Thing" "Stripped", "Drinking in Gomorrah", "Down to the River to Pray" many other wonders and delights...
What would yours contain?  What does yours contain?  Give me some new music ideas!
     Also bringing my camera-  When I am on Retreat, or in a place I find most magickal, I take lots of pictures.  I isolate some of these, to stock my mental world as pictures for A thing or idea in my internal magickal world.  To explain myself better- I attended a workshop that took place over multiple session in the same place. I built up ties to the people there, and the land.  There was a patio, with a arched iron hinged gate, of those iron arrow looking things that border crazy Victorian houses.  It was right beside a tiki torch brass lamp bowl.  One of those pictures is now my mental image of the GATE to the realm of the South, the plane of fire.  I also put it on my shrine wall, so I see it often to reinforce my memory.  I also went to England after highschool, and stood inside Merlin's cave, under Tintagel.  I have a picture from inside the cave, looking out to the beach and the ocean.  all dark inside, and gently dim outside.  It is my mental opening to the Underworld, and the Underworld sea. I  built my  own collage world, not just going by what random occult authors told me.  My world is rich and magickal, and tied to my own personal initatory experiences.
   I also found that I benefit from random art supplies.  I aspire to be an artist, in the classical drawing painting sense, or at least enough to get images out of my head, and onto paper, to keep them.  Not happening exceedingly well, as of yet, so I work collage art, and also keep refining my drawing.  The group I was working with earlier, where my GATE to FIRE came from taught this, and I honestly thought it was crap when announced.  The plan was, an elemental gaurdian was summoned by the group, and then we all got quet to recieve information from them, and also to See them.  Then we got out art tools, still meditative, and recorded what we Saw.  Very effective.  I found that my brain gives me images of things I have seen before, or heard described before, as I Saw a Winged lion creature,(my Gaming days) and then a whirlwind with eyes ( I think a cherubim described in A Wind in the Door-one of my religious books) and then a hand in shadow laying down an empty lavender and yellow domino mask. ( I suspect a King in Yellow reference there).  Taught me that everything can be recorded, for better memory later, even if in bad art, that my brain will provide me with images, reference points, if I just let; and that the World will be revealed to me in a collage of things I already know.
And bring Chocolate, Marshmellows, and graham crackers, as spiritual knowledge is best enjoyed with 'smores

the Latest Mad Science!

not really much different from the old mad science.  I've been spray painting a folding carpenter's ruler white on one side, so that I can then write on it with a black paint marker, so that I can make into a manifesting triangle.  Like my best other ideas, I swiped it, or to put it less larcenously, I was 'inspired by others'  This idea i got From Lon Milo Duquette's book "Low Magick:  Its all in your head..."  part memoir, part humorous tale, part cautionary tale, part lesson from a very clever person, the best money I spent on a book in a while!  Don't take my word for it, buy the book, give a cool person some money, and get far more neat ideas than you can work through,

some of my latest schemes

Other than the Blogging, of course!  Thoughts i've had- have you seen the Crayola Make your own glow in the dark sidewalk chalk kit?  I had an idea, as I am wont to do.  They aren't all good, but they amuse me.  Since you are making the chalk from scratch, I was suspecting that I could make chalk out of the chalk and Cascarilla (egg shell powder).  Egg shell powder is very spiritually protective, based, I would surmise on the fact that the egg shell protects new and fragile life.  The chalk would then be spiritually protective, AND glow in the dark!  How cool is that?  Sprinkle it in a circle, in powder form, or draw with in on pavement.  Cirlces, Symbols, Veves- magickal possibilities here!!
Other thought I had was based on condition oils for carrying around, like solid perfumes.  You can keep in a pocket.  I am working on a natural solid perfume base, and then add the condition oils instead of just the scent oils.  Carry them in a little tin, like Burts Bees lip balm.  When you need a little extra  Magick, just whip it out!

Science While Suffering from a cold-

Some of my current favorite ways to smack a cold around.  These cut the annoyance down.
 Skin brushing before shower, to help water get wastes out through the skin by removing the dead flakes, you're supposed to pay special attention to the lymph node areas, such as underarms, back of the knees, sides of neck- makes me feel kind of like a horse grooming itself.
Hydrotherapy-  I get into a warm shower, and slowly shift the heat up, until its as hot as I can take, for as long as I can take, and then slowly shift it cool, and then cold, for as long as I can take. I do this 4-5 times each way.  I then also salt scrub with lavender essential oil and olive oil, and then rinse off.
I've also taken to gargling 4-5 times a day, with warm water, salt, lemon juice, honey, tobasco sauce, and tumeric.
I drink lots of water, and tea with honey and lemon.  I neti pot, with warm water, salt, baking soda, and a few drops of literin.
I take psedophedrine maybe twice a day, if I can't stand it.
I whine, watch crap tv on DVD, and wait.

currently studying the tarot in more depth

I am currently comparing/contrasting the Rider-Waite  deck with the Crowley Thoth deck, especially in the form of "The Cosmic Tribe Tarot".  As an aside, I am also playing around with the Lenormand deck.  I find that while I don't get a strict mental idea of what the cards mean when I look at them yet, I do get a very strong idea of what the card means in a particular instance when I read meanings from a list of meanings.  One of them will be OBVIOUS.  The rest of the statements will be bland, unimportant, until I read the one meaning that the card is supposed to be in this instance.
some of the tools I am using for the project are The Universal Waite Pocket edition (As I prefer to playing card shuffle my cards, and my fingers are short).  I have also "sleeved" these with collectible card game sleeves, and put them in a collectible card game box. I've used the cards much more often since I feel safe about other people touching them, and also the sticky coffee stained surfaces in coffee shops.
 I like the "Mystical Lenormand" by Urban Trosch-Very exotic egg tempera art.  The cards are smaller than playing cards, but with my finger length, thats fine.

books I have enjoyed working with for this project-"The Easiest Way To Learn the Tarot -Ever"  by Dusty White.  This book reminds you to Play with the cards, instead of life and death seriousness.  One of their plans for learning is a game they call the neverending story, playable in groups or alone, in which you turn over cards and make up a continuous story out of the cards.  The book is hilarious, the comments and tips friendly.    "How to Read the Tarot: the Keyword System", by Sylvia Abraham, "Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot" by Lon Milo DuQuette, "The Secrets of the Lenormand Oracle" by Sylvie Steinbach, "Keywords for the Crowley" Hajo Banzhof and Brigitte Theler, and the wonderful book that comes with the "Cosmic Tribe Tarot" by Eric Ganther and Stevee Postman

This is a test post

Designed to check that all the links are working-  but may I just say that I am quite pleased with my latest musical find, Professor Elemetalhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iRTB-FTMdk