Lughnasadh '08
Aug. 1st, 2008 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastI slept about ten hours, which is really nothing short of amazing. All day yesterday was spent getting Sirenia Digest #32 out, six or seven hours work after four and a half hours sleep the night before. I will say that I think this issue of the Digest is one of the very best I've done, in terms of content and appearance. My grateful thanks to Sonya, Geoffrey, Vince, Rick, Gordon, and Spooky for making it work. Yesterday, somehow, I managed to proof and edit "Derma Sutra (1891)" (which I really am pleased with, by the way; I think I found a new flavour of me with it), proof Geoffrey's very excellent interview with Richard A. Kirk, and deal with the layout, in a state of consciousness that can best be described as zombiefied. There were a couple of lines from the interview with Rick I wanted to post here, because I just found it brilliant:
Our perception of the universe is like a tiny house floating on an endless sea. We sit inside this thing we have constructed, completely unaware of what lies outside, hoping that whatever is out there never gets curious enough to poke its nose under the door.
And if you'd like to get #32, subscribe sometime in the next week, and you'll get it.
And today is Lughnasadh. Spooky and I had planned to do a ritual out at Beavertail, but I think we're both still pretty exhausted from yesterday's Big Push, so we're playing it by ear. We'll at least bake a loaf of something, at the very least. I so desperately want to find a coven, and one reason is so that we do not have to be solely responsible for the details of ceremony on every sabbat and esabat. But, that brings me back around to either facing the not insignificant problem of finding a group that is comfortable with my unorthodox views (and vice versa) or trying to found my own coven built upon those views (Panthalassa, diminished emphasis on gender polarity, inclusion of a Divine Androgyne aspect as part of the "tripartite" Goddess, a move away from anthropomorphic deities, removal of the distinction between left- and right-hand paths, and so forth).
Anyway, when the work was finally done yesterday, I lay down on the chaise with Dr. Muñoz to try to read a few more pages of Fraser's Triassic book while Spooky fixed dinner (a stirfry of green beans, red bell pepper, zucchini, fresh basil, and ground chicken), but I dozed almost immediately. Spooky woke me for dinner. Later, but not too late, there was a really excellent bit of rp in the "Kingdom of Sand" sim (thank you Badra, Lina, Hela, and Sev), that pretty much exemplified what it is I've come to SL looking for and which sort of renewed my faith in the inherent potential of SL as an interactive story-telling tool, just when that faith was at an all-time low. In fact, I may clean up the transcript from the rp, add a few embellishments here and there, and post it behind a cut in this journal. It was really a splendid little series of scenes, first in the throne room of the palace in Ireem, then, later, in the Tower of Serpents (where the Magi practice). Nothing too profound. No fireworks. No sex. Just simple, good, solid rp/story telling. Anyway, about one a.m., I was falling asleep at the keyboard, and I crawled away to the front parlor and put Danny Boyle's Sunshine in the DVD player, as it has become one of my "comfort films." I dozed while it played, awakening for bits here and there. I remember waking to hear Cassie say, "Only dream I ever have...is the surface of the sun. Every time I shut my eyes, it's always the same." And finally I awoke near the end, as Capa is struggling in the bulky EVA suit to reach the payload, and, half awake, I lay there and marveled at the score and what a beautiful thing this vastly underrated film is (my next Mac will be named Icarus). Then I went to bed. And slept and slept and slept.
I should wrap this up. I've been ignoring email for two days, and I should ignore it no longer. Please have a look at the current eBay auctions (two of which end this afternoon), and please, please do pre-order a copy of the mass-market paperback edition of Daughter of Hounds. The platypus will probably thank you. I know that I shall.
Postcript (2:26 p.m.): It just occurred to me that I neglected to note in the new issue of the Digest that "Derma Sutra (1891)" was written entirely to just one song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds —— "Lovely Creature." I did manage to work the title into the story, but wish I'd remembered to acknowledge the song in the issue itself. I kept count (thank you iPod) of how many times I listened to the song while writing the story —— 104 times in 4 days (that's about seven hours worth of the song).
Our perception of the universe is like a tiny house floating on an endless sea. We sit inside this thing we have constructed, completely unaware of what lies outside, hoping that whatever is out there never gets curious enough to poke its nose under the door.
And if you'd like to get #32, subscribe sometime in the next week, and you'll get it.
And today is Lughnasadh. Spooky and I had planned to do a ritual out at Beavertail, but I think we're both still pretty exhausted from yesterday's Big Push, so we're playing it by ear. We'll at least bake a loaf of something, at the very least. I so desperately want to find a coven, and one reason is so that we do not have to be solely responsible for the details of ceremony on every sabbat and esabat. But, that brings me back around to either facing the not insignificant problem of finding a group that is comfortable with my unorthodox views (and vice versa) or trying to found my own coven built upon those views (Panthalassa, diminished emphasis on gender polarity, inclusion of a Divine Androgyne aspect as part of the "tripartite" Goddess, a move away from anthropomorphic deities, removal of the distinction between left- and right-hand paths, and so forth).
Anyway, when the work was finally done yesterday, I lay down on the chaise with Dr. Muñoz to try to read a few more pages of Fraser's Triassic book while Spooky fixed dinner (a stirfry of green beans, red bell pepper, zucchini, fresh basil, and ground chicken), but I dozed almost immediately. Spooky woke me for dinner. Later, but not too late, there was a really excellent bit of rp in the "Kingdom of Sand" sim (thank you Badra, Lina, Hela, and Sev), that pretty much exemplified what it is I've come to SL looking for and which sort of renewed my faith in the inherent potential of SL as an interactive story-telling tool, just when that faith was at an all-time low. In fact, I may clean up the transcript from the rp, add a few embellishments here and there, and post it behind a cut in this journal. It was really a splendid little series of scenes, first in the throne room of the palace in Ireem, then, later, in the Tower of Serpents (where the Magi practice). Nothing too profound. No fireworks. No sex. Just simple, good, solid rp/story telling. Anyway, about one a.m., I was falling asleep at the keyboard, and I crawled away to the front parlor and put Danny Boyle's Sunshine in the DVD player, as it has become one of my "comfort films." I dozed while it played, awakening for bits here and there. I remember waking to hear Cassie say, "Only dream I ever have...is the surface of the sun. Every time I shut my eyes, it's always the same." And finally I awoke near the end, as Capa is struggling in the bulky EVA suit to reach the payload, and, half awake, I lay there and marveled at the score and what a beautiful thing this vastly underrated film is (my next Mac will be named Icarus). Then I went to bed. And slept and slept and slept.
I should wrap this up. I've been ignoring email for two days, and I should ignore it no longer. Please have a look at the current eBay auctions (two of which end this afternoon), and please, please do pre-order a copy of the mass-market paperback edition of Daughter of Hounds. The platypus will probably thank you. I know that I shall.
Postcript (2:26 p.m.): It just occurred to me that I neglected to note in the new issue of the Digest that "Derma Sutra (1891)" was written entirely to just one song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds —— "Lovely Creature." I did manage to work the title into the story, but wish I'd remembered to acknowledge the song in the issue itself. I kept count (thank you iPod) of how many times I listened to the song while writing the story —— 104 times in 4 days (that's about seven hours worth of the song).
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 04:54 pm (UTC)Thank you for the Lammas reading.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 04:59 pm (UTC)plus any mention of Tsathoggua in a short story makes me smile (For some reason he's my favorite of the Great Old Ones).
And one I'd never written of before.
I also enjoyed Sonya's story as well, at the end of it I wanted the story to go on,
Same here, though I think a lot of its force is ending where it does.
Thank you for the Lammas reading.
You're welcome.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:07 pm (UTC)I practiced witchcraft on my own ten years ago and went to some gatherings and rituals, one of which was very important to me (Candlemass), and continue to study it, along with Buddhism, and talk to people about those things on an individual basis and privately, but have felt a sense of group spirituality and direction of will and love through music and underground shows (for one thing, it's basically all an exchange without money). If I didn't have that, I would be hungry for something like what you're describing, and am sure there are others who need it.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:22 pm (UTC)I really hope that such a coven exists, as it should.
Early on, it just never even occurre dto me I'd have trouble finding a coven. I didn't set out to be contrary. But the ones I look into are all obsessed with Gardner's dictates, or they're Dianic and fear anything but strict feminism, or they're utterly tied up in gender duality, or it's all about "white witchcraft," or...the list goes on and on.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 06:43 pm (UTC)One band I'm close to but also an outsider to, a fifth member sometimes, is also a sort of coven - but it's so hard to break out of the problems of time and space and convention even for them and me with them. It's two couples, and most live out of town (one person did move here, though) but there was an amazing Walpurgisnacht by a lake in Maine once. i do need to emphasis my role, I think. When the five of us last played music together, we all acknowledged how we needed it, and then me and the other girl had to go home to Providence.
Most people who play music are male. Since I have two sisters I've accepted that I needed the male-family that bands can give, but the one I have with a woman is necessary in a different way. These are all equivalent to sexual relationships for me. WIthin the music scene, it does require some active effort to make things mixed-gender, especially as I'm not very invested in feminism (I respect it but am a feminist the way my dad is, and will support people who need and want it); my first band was all-female, and that was vital. Understanding gender roles has been a matter of how to transcend them; and a coven is an excellent way to do so - otherwise, to settle back into a set of accepted rules that you can find in many other institutions defeats the purpose of creating your own space.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 07:19 pm (UTC)That baffled me a little, as there were always women there dancing, and they often had fire performers. Maybe the difference was I wasn't in it to get laid ;) I was responding on a very internal level to the music, and felt the need to give something back. If that makes sense. To just stand there and listen was impossible, and would have simply felt wrong.
I've always been less structured as regards magic, and more open to magic as I find it. It can happen any time, just about anywhere. Small rituals out of the blue. An action or offering that just seems right.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 07:31 pm (UTC)there was a band about a decade ago (all male) who I absolutely adored. They were all into ritual and paganism to varying degrees (the drummer being the strongest), and the very first time I saw them perform I could not stop myself from becoming lost in the music. The drumming especially just pulled me out of whatever was wrong or difficult in my life at the time and let me get lost in this amazing space for a while...
Summerland?
I've always been less structured as regards magic, and more open to magic as I find it. It can happen any time, just about anywhere. Small rituals out of the blue. An action or offering that just seems right.
And while I feel the need for greater structure, personally, I understand this approach implicitly.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-02 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:11 pm (UTC)It's going to be one of my favorite stories of yours. I love it.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:22 pm (UTC)It's going to be one of my favorite stories of yours. I love it.
That pleases me greatly.
Low Red Moon
Date: 2008-08-01 05:22 pm (UTC)I found myself having difficulty sleeping after I first began reading it a few days ago, even just the prologue affected me. You see my room was just too dark and I thought there were things...
Re: Low Red Moon
Date: 2008-08-01 05:23 pm (UTC)You see my room was just too dark and I thought there were things...
One must ever be on the watch for...things.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:24 pm (UTC)as it has become one of my "comfort films."
Likewise. I saw it for the second time last week and it lost nothing for me. I'm very glad to own a copy.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:26 pm (UTC)Should we ever get the chance to speak more, I am going to have to remember the subject of Paganism, since your take and mine have more in common than not.
Oh, I'm sure we'll speak more, and yes, remember to raise this subject next time.
Likewise. I saw it for the second time last week and it lost nothing for me. I'm very glad to own a copy.
At this point, I've lost count of how many times I've seen it, and it just keeps filling me with wonder.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:47 pm (UTC)I finally got to watch Doomsday (the unrated cut) last night... And boy is that a glorious mess. The dialogue is hilariously bad in a way that should inspire drinking games, and there are problems with the plot... (they ran out of food so they started eating each other but the first thing the team runs into is a herd of like, a million cows? Whiskey Foxtrot Tango? They could have just made the Marauders cannibals because it's frakking intimidating, and the ending shatters into a million nonsensical pieces.) But I think I loved it anyway.
The use of music in the film was so schizophrenic it made me laugh, too.
But the tattooed chick was way underused.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:49 pm (UTC)But I think I loved it anyway.
I think that perfectly sums up my feelings about the film.
But the tattooed chick was way underused.
Indeed.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:55 pm (UTC);P
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:56 pm (UTC)Ain't it just, though?
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 06:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 06:12 pm (UTC)Daughter of Hounds pre-ordered. I can't wait to read it.
Thank you!
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 06:32 pm (UTC)Since polarity of some kind (liminality as expressed as a "tool," if you will) is a core part of most traditional witchcraft practice, one of the most common ones is that of gender.
Which isn't to say that you're expected to use that in your own personal practice, of course, any more than if you end up with a group that is part of a trad they expect you to use that symbol set in your personal practice.
That's the problem with trad practice, of course. It's orthopraxic, rather than orthodoxic. Instead of "you must believe this, but express that however you want," it's "practice like this, but bring your own beliefs."
I do know a number of British Traditional covens (all Alexandrians) in the area you moved to - my home coven is descended from the covens there, and I've attended the occasional Alexandrian Tea held in Connecticut.
I don't mind saying - as a gay man, I was very hesitant about dealing with assumed polarity in my practice. Of course, finding a large number of other queer folk in the Alexandrians helped me wrap my own experience around it in a meaningful fashion. Obviously, I'm not saying that's going to be automatically the case for everyone; everyone has their own experience.
Just something to think on, though.
Regards,
Joseph
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 06:45 pm (UTC)Just something to think on, though.
Yes, thank you. A very nice comment.
Since polarity of some kind (liminality as expressed as a "tool," if you will) is a core part of most traditional witchcraft practice, one of the most common ones is that of gender.
I think this is where I run into trouble, at least as regards wanting to expand my personal experience to practice within a larger group than me and Spooky. I cannot acknowledge simple polarities, but see everything in Nature as existing along continua. As Darwin said, it not a matter of kind, but a matter of degree. And I think this applies to everything from male/female, straight/gay, cisgender/transgender, right hand/left hand/ dark/light, etc. I insist upon recognition of the continua, or the system strikes me as so inherently artificial as to become meaningless. But the human mind is not, I think, on the whole, wired to perceive in continua, working with effectively infinite degrees, but rather to perceive in quanta, discerning fairly simple patterns, especially those that constitute binary opposition.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 06:58 pm (UTC)Agreed. Emphatically so.
But it is also worthwhile to remember that the symbol is not the thing. In this, as with anything else.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 07:28 pm (UTC)But it is also worthwhile to remember that the symbol is not the thing. In this, as with anything else.
And I do very much recognize the utility of symbols, so long as one never loses sight of the actual complexity the symbol exists to embody.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 07:41 pm (UTC)Studying biology has drawn me back towards thinking about practices of spirit, because of what I get out of it and my reasons for it - I love the feeling of utter awe and always being at the beginning. Lynn Margulis spoke in Providence last spring, and she is not afraid to use her imagination and personal force within her work, from the time when endosymbiotic theory was ridiculed, in conceiving of the range of possibilities and interactions of Nature.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 08:04 pm (UTC)You know, we should really arrange to meet up, if you'd be comfortable with that. Possibly, we could even work out some sort of local reading/performance.
That attempt to balance seems to be about the individual body and homeostasis. But being aware of the continuum/continua is another, essential level.
I think people get confused when I insist that polarity should not be the central focus of Wicca and think that I'm somehow advocating the abandonment of balance, which I'm not. I'm only pointing out that balance is never a choice between polar opposites, as polar opposites generally occur only in the mind of human beings. For example, I am very concerned with gender, but cannot approach it by insisting that one must find a balance between extremes of that which this society deems properly male and female. Instead, balance is the acknowledgment of the Natural continuum of gender (and noting that gender, sex, and gender roles are three distinct issues).
But, yes, we should meet.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-02 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-02 05:38 pm (UTC)I'd like to meet up sometime, and the idea of a reading; there are many places in town that would be open to that, even ones that might not be obvious, like Julian's, a restaurant on Broadway, and there are many people who would like to be exposed to something new. (Ada Books has readings, but it's a a very small space - anyway, it's my favorite bookstore after Cellar Stories, downtown.) I'm leaving town in a week but will be back in September and will get in touch then.
Excellent. I'll be looking forward to it.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 06:33 pm (UTC)I find, increasingly, that if you want anything in this world, and if you want it to be as close to perfect as you imagine it, you have to make it yourself. Someone else's concept will always be Almost, and that will always leave you with dissonance, at best, and a hole, at worst.
I think the coven you made would be a wonderful thing, and would do a lot of important workings.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 06:48 pm (UTC)I think the coven you made would be a wonderful thing, and would do a lot of important workings.
But, my gods, the time commitment. It seems staggering to even consider. Add in my lack of social graces, and the fact that initiates would have to accept that there would be no central dogma and that the system would be constantly in flux...
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 07:16 pm (UTC)It would be something to be begun, I would think, between The End of The Red Tree, and the beginning/continuation of whatever comes next. Take that brief breathing room for centering and calming and planing.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 07:26 pm (UTC)Absolutely, but I think that the type to be drawn by that would understand the idea of distributed commitments, and the fact that, though you started it, it would not be down to you and Spooky to organise every damn ritual. That's just an unfair imposition, especially in what is supposed to be a Group dynamic.
But...there is the fact that I am control freak to consider.
It would be something to be begun, I would think, between The End of The Red Tree, and the beginning/continuation of whatever comes next. Take that brief breathing room for centering and calming and planing.
It's something I will think on.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 09:16 pm (UTC)Very true. All factors to weigh and balance. I just think it would be brilliant. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-08-01 10:27 pm (UTC)Ravenwood'sOwl's the real expert.) There will be a circle at the beach, followed by eating. Should be cool.no subject
Date: 2008-08-02 04:56 am (UTC)We're doing a Lammas/Lughnasadh/August 1 thingy here. (Ravenwood's Owl's the real expert.) There will be a circle at the beach, followed by eating. Should be cool.
If only we had known...
no subject
Date: 2008-08-02 05:43 am (UTC)