greygirlbeast | Entries tagged with witchcraft

There is a phrase that is not uttered in this house. That phrase dreaded by all authors. Especially authors with non-negotiable and constant deadlines. Especially when not meeting those deadlines means not being able to pay the bills. In this house, we simply refer to it as the "w-word." Which is to say, I'm struggling with the language. Yesterday, I must have written five or six hundred words, and threw them all away. And these are the very worst sort of writing days. The breathing space I thought I'd have this month is gone, because of this, yesterday and the dry week preceding it. Here I am again, running out of time. And staring into the uncertainty of the day. Oh, I also got some work done on the Secret Project yesterday.

I tried to write on Thursday, but to no avail. Friday brought warmer weather, and so I decided that it might help to leave the house. I'd not been out of the apartment in a week. I'm not supposed to do that anymore. The temperatures were forecast for the high sixties, and we drove to Beavertail. Along the way, more signs of spring. A few splashes of green in the trees. Skunk cabbages and cattails in all the boggy spots. The dogwoods are in bloom. But when we reached Beavertail, we discovered there was a rough sea and a ferocious wind off the bay, and the wind chill must have had the temperature at the point, below the lighthouse, down in the forties or lower. We tried the shore half a mile farther north, on the eastern side of the island, but the wind was still too brisk for comfort. We sat among the rocks for a little while, listening to the sea and watching the gulls and cormorants. And then we headed back inland. Oh, I almost forgot. Before Beavertail, we went to Wickford, to the Herb Wyfe, because there were things we needed. Wickford was warm, and we sat a while and watched the boats in the cove. I think the high for the day was in the low seventies. Unless you were at Beavertail. Today, the high will only be in the fifties. But, slowly, this winter is ending.

Then, yesterday...well, I covered that already.

Some good WoW last night, thanks to an invitation to a huge raiding party. We swept through the Eastern Kingdoms, from Menethil Harbor through the Wetlands, then up into the mountains via Dun Algaz, and hit the dwarves in Loch Modan. From there, we continued south, across the Blasted Lands, the Searing Gorge, through the lava-illumined halls of Blackrock Mountain and out again onto the Burning Steppes. Over the Redridge Mountians by way of the Blackrock Pass. We slaughtered everything in Lakeshire, then continued south into Duskwood. Darkshire met the same fate as Lakeshire. In Duskwood, we realized we were being trailed by two or three Alliance scouts, and we met considerable resistance after we crossed the river into Westfal. There was a marvelous battle below Sentinel Hill, after which we headed east again, into the Elwyn Forest, and we made our last stand in Goldshire. Our raiding party repelled wave after wave of Alliance pouring out of Stormwind Keep, but was finally vanquished by a force three times our size. It was pretty damn cool. And Suraa and Shaharrazad both got the "Know Thy Enemy" achievement, which we hadn't expected to ever earn.

A lot of reading the last few days. I'm working my way back through Lovecraft's "The Haunter of the Dark" and "The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath." On the one hand, I think I appreciate the latter story more than I have in the past, but, on the other, it's surely one of HPL's stranger (and longest), and I'm wondering if anyone's ever tried reading it as a sort of Gulliver's Travels political satire. And there's been more from the latest Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, papers on the "rauisuchian" archosaur Batrachotomus kupferzellensis; the ontogeny of Stegosaurus; ontogenetic and taxonomic implications of pattern and transition of surficial bone texture of the centrosaurine frill; and Adeopapposaurus, a new prosauropod dinosaur from Argentina.

There are some photos from Friday, behind the cut. The platypus says it's time to..well, you know.

( 17 April 2009 )

Current Mood: angry, nerdy, and dreading
Current Location: Apsus Vallis
Current Music: Elvis Costello/The Brodsky Quartet, "Damnation's Cellar"

What is this obsession with writing it all down? Has some part of me begun to believe it isn't real, these experiences, unless I write them down? Or that they are not valid, or won't prove lasting, unless I commit them to this journal? It's been eating at me.

Yesterday, we left Providence about one p.m., and drove north, past Boston, to Salem. Along the road, only the willows seemed to be greening. There were red splotches of cranberry bogs. We spent part of the afternoon exploring witchcraft shops (an annoying number of which were closed). We found a couple that were not too touristy and not of the airy-fairy, fluffy-bunny variety, which was refreshing. Places that weren't terrified of the "left path." Some old guy on the street, wearing so many pentagrams I lost count, showed us we were holding the map of Salem upside down. We drove past the House of the Seven Gables and Nathaniel Hawthorne's birthplace, but it was already late, and we didn't stop. On the waterfront, we saw a huge sailing ship, Friendship of Salem. The city has a strange effect on me. Salem, I mean. On the one hand, there's all the tacky Disneyesque crap, the wax museums, the "haunted tours," and whatnot. And then there's the history of the trials (which has a lot less to do with witchcraft than with mass hysteria and general intolerance). And then there's the sense that, ironically, Salem draws genuine practitioners of various occult traditions. And the end result, in my head, is a weird clash, an almost dizzying sort of cognitive dissonance.

Late in the afternoon, we drove down to Marblehead. I wish I could see Marblehead as it was a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago, before it was prettied up and gentrified. The tide was out, and just as the sun was setting, we found a marvelous rocky cove on Front Road. Later, back home, I learned that it's called Fort Seawall Cove. There was a seawall. The beach here reminded me of Ireland, in and around Dublin, which no other New England beach has ever really done. There was beach glass everywhere. Great clumps of bladder wrack, huge mounds of snail and mussel shells. Tilted beds of Precambrian granite. We stayed almost until dark, and left reluctantly. I think we made it home about 8:30 p.m.

Here are three photos from yesterday:

( 9 April 2009 )

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And I should repost links to the latest round of eBay auctions and, also, to Emma the Beltane Bunneh.

Current Mood: at sixes and sevens
Current Location: Aesacus Dorsum
Current Music: The Decemberists, "The Infanta"

One of the very good things about keeping journals — both the pen-and-paper sort and this other, virtual sort — is the ability to look back at a given past date in my life, whether it's one year ago or ten years ago, and measure how much I have changed from that time. Or not changed, as the case may be. It's like my personal fossil record, a reckoning of my own psychological evolution, whether gradualistic or of a more punctuated tempo. Yesterday, I came across this paragraph, from my 3/9/06 entry. It was heartening, as I can read these words now, a year later, and not be embarrassed by them, by the sentiment they express, which, if anything, I feel more strongly now than I did a year ago:

I wanted to say thanks to the people who've commented on yesterday's dream entry. Especially mockingbirdgrrl, who wrote, "Your statement, 'Magic is communication. Magic is the one-way communication between any living organism and the cosmos. We speak and the cosmos doesn't listen, but we speak because there's nothing else we can do.' resonates soundly. I kept rereading it, thinking I'd heard that somewhere before. Here it is, from Simon Black's The Book of Frank: 'Because in reality, there is no response to our howling, not here. But that fact is intolerable. The mind invents a response.'" I've never read Simon Black, but yes, exactly. Consciousness cannot help but howl. I know I've been howling my head off for my whole goddamn life. And, so far, the only response beyond wishful thinking has been the beauty and profundity of Nature and Art* that's right here for anyone who'll but open their eyes and see the small fraction that's visible. I know my howling consciousness will always long for something more, some two-way communication, but I'm beginning to accept (in the words of Elizabeth Bear) the apparent truth that "Nobody is coming for you." My dream was fascinating and helpful, but it was only me talking to me, my unconscious and perhaps a Jungian collective attempting to aid my clumsy, fretting conscious mind. Of course, it was also the voice of the "goddess," the Dark Mother and Father and Divine Androgyne, but only because I am a part of the cosmos, as are you and that lightning-struck tree and the crows and everything living and non-living, every molecule and atom and sub-atomic speck and particle and wave...and, well, I think you see where I'm headed with this. Sagan said it best. "Star stuff."

I would add, now, that "Magick is the willful invocation of awe," but I sort of suspect that more recent statement is only a refinement of "Magic is communication. Magic is the one-way communication between any living organism and the cosmos." Also, while I'm on the subject, this bit from the LJ of

morganxpage yesterday:

I strongly believe that the subjugation of sexuality is the root of all evil in the world. It causes every complex, it starts every war, it is the only perversion. Sex is the all-pervading force that animates the Universe, to try to bridle it is disgusting. My Gods are Orgasms, we all are orgasms. Really, think about that: you are the fruition of someone's orgasm. Your whole body, your entire personality, everything about you is someone's orgasm. The whole Universe is one big orgasm.

While I would not go so far as to state that the repression of sex is the only perversion or "evil" (personally, I continue to identify wasteful acts as the greatest crimes against Nature), I wholeheartedly agree with the general sentiment being expressed here. As a child, I was raised in some odd twilight, halfway between the Roman Catholic Chrurch and the United Methodist Church. But, either way, there was that constant message, explicit or implicit, that sex was the reason for "the fall" from some imagined grace, the route by which "sin" entered the world, that, indeed, sex was such a vile act that the Xtian saviour had to be born asexually, sort of like a bacterium or a sponge. Only by spontaneous generation could a "pure" man be born. And I say now, all these years later, that one of the lights Neopaganism could, in theory, retsore to humanity is the knowledge that sex — straight, gay, bi, poly, auto, pretty much whatever floats your boat without sinking someone else's — is part of that thing which we would call sacred, magickal, divine. Anyway, just thoughts going round in my head.

Today, I expect to finish "In View of Nothing" for Sirenia Digest #16. Today, I write the last two sections — "08. The Book (II)" and "09. Exit Music (The Gun)" and find THE END. The dream in back of this story has not recurred over the last couple of weeks, and I hope that when I am done with this story, I will be done with the dream and it will be done with me.

Not much to yesterday. A day off. Last night, we watched Paul Rachman's documentary American Hardcore (2006), which was quite fine.

The platypus says it's time the make the doughnuts, and who am I to argue?

*Truthfully, though, Art is merely a subset or expression of Nature.

Current Mood: productive
Current Location: Arsia Mons
Current Music: Smashing Pumpkins, "Thirty-Three"

Poking about the web yesterday, I came very unexpectedly upon a review of Silk and Murder of Angels at BlogCritics.org, the two books reviewed together. A right grand review, at that, which I'd never before seen, even though it was posted October 8th, 2004. Someone who — mostly — gets it, and the review is intelligent and insightful. Being described as "H.P. Lovecraft's spiritual granddaughter" made me smile for hours, even though I suspect I'd probably scare the bejesus out of poor old H. P. ("At least," says Spooky.) By the way, my offer of free signed copies of the tpb of Silk still stands for any new Sirenia Digest subscribers...by the way.

Today, I begin an experiment in which my usual morning post is replaced by an evening post. Here's the deal. There's so goddamn much work right now, the only hope I have of having time left to walk and exercise during the day is to bump the blog entry to the evening. And exercise I must. So, we'll see how this works out. But it's only temporary. I'm gonna go back to morning entries sometime this spring, at the very latest.

I wrote 1,188 words yesterday, and 1,341 today. Then Spooky and I spent the rest of the afternoon getting started on the proofreading of Low Red Moon for the mass-market paperback. We made it through the prologue and chapters One and Two. I had forgotten how much I love this book. At this point, it's my second favorite of my novels, after Daughter of Hounds. I do hope that this new edition (the third since 2003!), gives it another shot and a wider readership. Many typos and errors will be corrected in the text. Also today I dealt with the last bit of Tales from the Woeful Platypus, which is no longer mine to deal with. It's out of my hands now. Which is a relief. That's one thing off my plate.

In the comments to Tuesday's entry regarding my reworking of Wicca, my use of the Sindarin word sigil rather than the "traditional" athame for the black-handled ritual dagger, someone noted the parallel with the English word sigil and all its connotations (some of which I admit I find annoying, because of chaos magick's use of the word). Today, I recalled the name Sigel, which, despite spelling differences, is actually closer to a genuine homonym of the Sindarin sigil ("see-geel"). Sigel is the Old English incarnation of the Norse sun goddess Sól, which actually works out very nicely. I'm sure Tolkien must have been aware of this parallel.

Someone else asked what I thought would be left when I'd finished purging Wicca of all Gardner's Judeo-Xtian elements. Which is a good question. The answer is likely complex, though I might, for the time, say "Very little, I suspect." Indeed, so little will likely remain that I shall have to abandon the name Wicca in favour of something else. A lot of the elements in question are not only to be found in Wicca, but in NeoPaganism, in general. The pentagram or pentacle, for example. That's not a pagan symbol. Though it is not impossible to imagine that some Celtic or Norse or Eastern European architect or proto-mathematician might have stumbled upon this geometric configuration, it comes to Wicca directly from ceremonial magick, Freemasonry, the Order of the Golden Dawn, etc. Instead, I am employing a simple circle to define "sacred" ritual space. Many other basic elements of Wicca have already been discarded — calling to the four quarters, for example, another thing which Gardner borrowed from ceremonial magick. And the "Rede," which likely comes to Wicca via Aleister Crowley's formulation of the Laws of Thelema. The "Three Fold Law" seems more like a weird marriage of Buddhism and Xtianity than anything else, and is a concept which I find fundamentally absurd (for reasons discussed in earlier entries). Likewise, I have no use for Wicca's obsession with gender duality, which is, at best, dated and rendered irrelevant by transgenderism and over-population and a number of other things. At worst, it is sexist, homophobic, and skewed towards the cisgendered. The system which will work for me must regard gender not as a duality, but as a continuum.

So, as you can see, it looks less and less like Wicca all the time. I am keeping many of the ritual tools — the black-handled dagger (as mentioned above), the chalice (as it has mythic resonance beyond the Xtian "grail"), the cauldron, the broom, the altar stone, and so forth. In the end, this is about my belief that a) NeoPaganism should not be infused at every turn with Judeo-Xtian elements, b) that a Nature religion should be a Nature religion, reflecting the complexities of the natural world instead of outmoded human dualisms, and c) the belief that while a NeoPagan may reach back for myth and tradition and history, sheheit must also reach ahead. As I've said before, we need a paganism for the 21st Century, not the 17th or 5th.

We shall see where all this leads. Comments and feedback is welcome on all these points, by the way.

I'm still giving Heroes a chance. The last couple of episodes have hooked me again, as they have seemed less bland, less televisiony. Maybe I just have a crush on Hiro.

Oh! I almost forgot. I got Zoe, which pleases me immensely.

What Firefly Character Are You?
Zoe Alleyne Above all things, you're tough. You're also very private and prefer to keep your personal life just that. You know what to do to get the job done, and can always be counted on. You may not have much of sense of humor, but you're strong, reliable, and loyal.
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