Now!!! Right Now!!! At this Very Moment!!

I am NOW blogging over at Manifest Magick.com With The Inimitable Brinn Ogdoad, and the Every Amazing Kissa Kadir!! We have just blogged about our Experiences at PUF this year. The Cool Times we had, the things we talked about... You know you want to know... Follow my continued adventures as a Modern Witch and Probability Engineer, bringing Magick to the Everyday world.

Moving!!

Exciting Times!! Big plans ahead!! I will be writing from a whole new venue... I will post and link soon.

Good Reads Review for "Wicca 404"

Wicca 404: Advanced Goddess Thealogy by HPS, Esra Free
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I liked the ideas she presented, and how she presented them, for the most part. I had already come up with similar ideas through reading "Spiral Dance". The idea of Goddess and the Living Universe we inhabit, not just the planet we live on. The sequential idea that this thought would make an impact on the choices you make in life, as we are all more tightly interconnected than some viewpoints on many religions allow for. I was not as impressed with her God concept, seemed rather vague considering how much though and time she had obviously spent on her central theory.

View all my reviews

Collage work As within, so without

I am going to ramble on now about a thing that drives me stark raving mad.  Its a thing in myself, so noone's fault really, not even mine that I can see.  I have extreme trouble with things that are in harmonious in my environment, but only some of the time.  I see them sometimes, but not others.  I guess i see them more when things are either really going well, so they jar more, or really going all to Hell, so its one more thing.  To soothe my world along more agreeably to me, I like to, whenever practically or realistically possible, fix these things. House isn't perfectly clean and people are coming over, dim the lights and light some candles.  The annoying neighbor (even if in the next room) is playing an idiotic t.v.show with a laugh tract, play music so that it smooths over it.

One of my points of annoyance, for sometime really, is the art on tarot cards, and how rarely I like the art on ALL of the cards in a deck.  I might have even talked about this before, but the trick memory, you know how it is, so you get to hear it again.  Say The Gilded Tarot By Marchetti.  Very colorful, vibrant. I liked most of the cards, and the images would stand out from the darker background, just delightful to me.  Until, trouble in paradise, the Lovers Card.  A fully armored man is playful hoisting a semiclad woman up, presumably to then scootch her down his front for a snuggle.  The Woman has a Belly piercing!!! Armor, Belly piercing- this doesn't say romance to me, this says a quick trip to Urgent Care.  A reall Buzz kill for a romantic mood if ever I had to imagine one.  But I am not trying to be critical of an otherwise beautiful deck, and its not my only example...Wait, there's more.  Consider the World Spirit Tarot.  Linoleum print which looks like woodcut, dark and jewel tones.  Good so far.  People of lots of different colors and bodytypes living in peaceful kumbaya harmony.  Great.  I would like the tarot I choose to reflect the world I would prefer to have.  fine and Good.....Wait for it.... The Sun card.  Looks like a George W. Bush baby chariceture.   AARRRGGHHHH.  Bought the Wildwood Tarot, as i missed out on the Greenwood Tarot, and i don't have a couple of extra hundred dollars to spend for it now.  Made by the same author, different artist, the cards are named the same, the court cards are beautiful animals as intricate as an Audubon bird print.  The Major Arcana are majestic and imposing.  I bought it for the card images I could see on aeclectic tarot, I had learned my lesso from buying decks just based on their description or the cover of the box,,,And.... some of the minors have art that looks like it comes from a throwaway crowd scene in a comic book.... Sigh
So what I would really like is either many tarot decks printed by one publisher so that you can pick and choose your individual cards and print the deck with all the cards you want, or get better at collage, and just damn well make my own world, you know, like we do with magick :)

Travelling without leaving my room

I have very much become enamored of a post over in Cabinet of Enchantments, by Kylara.  I'll link you, but you really should go over there anyway
http://cabinetofenchantments.blogspot.com/

I have never really tried the experiment before, as, sad to admit, it wasn't within my usual favorite flavor.  I am a witch.  I will play around with chaos magick, sorcery, Ceremonial Magick, and shamanism, but I am embarrassed to admit it, if something seemed New Age 60/70's I usually try to avoid it, or run the other way. I am alright if there is an analog in witchcraft, or if I can rename the thing to fit my flavor- Not that fond of Chakra work, I would rather do Middle Pillar, 3 cauldrons, or The Witch's Ladder using Elemental energy and my spine, so a flaw in my being, I'm sure, but there it is.
So even though Remote viewing had even been explored by the US military, I though it was too cheesy for me.
I read Kylara's post, and it was the height of sanity, and with instructions so easy, I would have to be even more foolish than usual to not attempt.  I have a picture, of a location I have wanted to revisit since I was there, just after high-school, "Merlin's Cave" underneath Tintagel in England.

I took the picture myself, and it reminds me also of the first time I felt free, away from my family, making daily decision for my self, using my own judgement.  Also, I felt the energy of the place, before I could completely understand about magick, but had book studied it for quite awhile.

So my experiment includes a rewrite of Kylara's instructions, almost like a pathworking induction, a studying of the picture in detail, and doing this both while awake in meditation, and also attempting it using dream protocols ( Strange that i don't have much trouble with the term 'lucid dreaming'.  Perhaps because I was one naturally, so didn't have to read explanations first? )

I'll report back.  Or better yet, you pick a place, or even Merlin's Cave, and you report back, too.

My house lacking in Perfection, but Still Perfect

I love that I live with Fellow Experimenters ! I really don't know how the rest of the world gets along!  If I was forced to watch Jersey Shores, I think I might have to off myself!  Not that I live a Luddite existence, just that what people are wanting to sell for most tv, i have FAR better things to do!  So, with my fellow Housemates (Who am I kidding, they did most of the heavy lifting on this one)  we installed shelves in my bed-rooms walk in closet.  2 sets all around the perimeter above head height, and all down the back wall.  Bought plywood, had it cut by Lowes to approximate what we would need, hauled it home,  got them painted (that was me) and then fastening up supports to the walls, I now have a place to lay my vast fabric stash out where it can be seen and handy, without being annoying, or a hazard to walking.  This is pretty common at the Secret Lair, although the projects can vary widely.  Janos caulked all around the exterior windows, James refitted the derelict hot tub that was here when we got here with new PVC plumbing so it would work, some reloading goes on, lots of recycling, both the for money and the making things into other things variety, Why am I rambling on about how awesome we are?  Well, because we Are awesome, but that wasn't really the thing I wanted to get to.  I hear people often wondering enviously how come we are so talented, or them wishing they had people in their lives who could do these things or help them with these things.  The thing they might not have thought of, is while we wish we were, we are not Always triumphant, or talented, or even really having a clue.  The shelves we misscut, so had to cobble them together in spots from other pieces.  I trash about 1/4 of all fabric experiments.  If a dinner experiment goes awry, there is always pizza (though Dominos changed there delivery area so that we are no longer in it, but that's a different story).  Carpentry is reasonably forgiving.  My front porch is spattered with the paint of my shelves.  BUT I now have AWESOME shelves, the paint can be sanded off the deck, and pizza is a perfectly good reason to fail on purpose.  What we are is buoyant in our thinking, not concerned with perfection, and FEARLESS!  You can do this!! Tell me about your successes!! Let's cheer each other on! Lets mutually appreciate each other.

Divination Study

I am continuing my deeper tarot/divination study.  I have come to some of the same conclusions as I did about magick in general.  You can read books, and see what other people are up to for only so long.  And then, you have to decide.  You have to decide which of the things you have seen works for your personal version of the world.  You have to make a plan for yourself, and start using it in reality before you can see if the plan works.  You also have to then decide what you think divination can do for you and how it does it.  Our theories will doubtless be different.  I think the future is in motion,(Yoda-"Ever in Motion is the Future") and an instance of divination is a snapshot of the current trends at that moment.  I think the trends can be observed for hazards, and then either mundane or magick methods can be used to hopefully skate across the danger.  I also sometimes like to draw a card to check the temperature or atmosphere of a room and its inhabitants.

a little witchy music for your enjoyment

witch

Bought a 35mm camera!

Haven't been using one since college, when I studied photojournalism.  Exciting times!  There are things, activities, actions that bring you back to who you are or move you further away.  I sometimes don' t notice when I am less myself, except by contrast when I am more myself.  What are some things that make you more yourself?

Review- Lon Milo DuQuette's "My Life with the Spirits: The Adventures of a Modern Magician"

There are some people who’s brains just fascinate me.  Even trickier to get a good look at a brain, when I don’t know them personally, and just know them by there writing.  Lon Milo DuQuette is on of those people who I would desperately like to know.  This book recounts amusing, frightening, enlightening, embarrassing anecdotes in a way that it seems like he is telling the stories to you in person over coffee. There are some fascinating cautionary tales, that still manage to make magick still seem amusing anyway.  He tells you the story of his life and how he came to be a magician, and then relates some stories of magickal events.  He adds enough details to these incidents that they are useful in seeing magick done by people in the current world, with everyday tools like cardboard to draw sigils on and clothesline rope to form the circle with.  I was also fascinated by the way that he can write about those events that are true and crystal clear in magick when you are doing them, but when you get done, seem crazy, even though you were there at the time.  This book was such a good read I couldn’t stop. 

If you like it, also read by him “Low Magick: Its All in Your Head…You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is”

A little introduction

I don’t believe I every really properly introduced myself, just started talking at you as if you would understand straight from the beginning.  I am writing to you as Greyer Jane, A Mad Scientist Probability Engineer Conversationalist.  I believe in living an experimental experiential life. Think of it as bizarre art motion study.  I started life off of center, as I expect most occultists and maybe everyone if we would just admit it starts.  I liked to figure out how to do things, or just absently speculate or observe or daydream.  One of my early learning treasures was being taught to read by my Nama, before I was old enough to go to school, reading a Koala book over and over again.  My first book that I chose for myself was a Guide to Birds of North America.  I was a champion daydreamer in class, since I already knew how to read, living my life in school in my world and in the classroom by protest.  I read everything I could find, whether it was approved of by parental types or not, and found out some mysterious things really early. I was abetted by helpful Librarians, who in a very real sense raised me. I had the notion that anything labeled as History was true, and so became fascinated with the accounts of the Witch trials in Europe, especially accounts of evidence given.  Some of the first occult books I can remember reading from our Public Library were Arthur Edward Waite’s “”Book of Black Magic” and “Illustrated Anthology of Sorcery, Magic, and Alchemy”, by Emile Grillot De Givry.  I also discovered The Greek Myths as recounted by Edith Hamilton about the same time; in particular I was charmed by the stories of Athena. I lamented that we no longer had equality, Goddesses in our religion.  My own family was very laissez-faire Christian, mainly going to Church or believing or talking about religion at all on Holidays.  I read and studied all I could about the Craft of the Witches on my own.  This being the 70’s /80’s in Kentucky, it was very hit or miss in the bookstores.  That taught me discernment among the information I did find.  I went away to college, ostensibly to study History, but really regretting that I couldn’t study Occult.  At Westertn’s library, I discovered “Drawing Down the Moon” by Margot Adler and found that in the modern world there were actual functioning adults who considered themselves Witches and worshipped Pagan Gods.  It was a revelation to me.  The Advent of Amazon books and the Internet let me now live in a candy-store worth of information, and has also brought me the pleasure of the company of other Witches.

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