Ivy climbs the northern wall of the edifice, twisting around corporate tresses. It reaches skyward to thwart the wood, to climb and leap and grasp hold of the walls, to grow on and into mortar and tear the building down, brick by crumbling brick. The suits behind the scenes say they are stewards of the environment, but Mother Nature has asked for no such thing. As long as there are SUVs and CDs, consumers and consumption, the vines will keep climbing.

Two vultures look on from atop parking lot lights, cold winds ruffling their feathers.

I've been trying to get into songwriting for the past, oh, month or so. It's not long as far as these endeavors go, but I've always considered myself something of a writer so I thought, "Hey, I can do this. It might be a little rough at the start, but I should be able to bang out something mediocre with enough work, right?"

Well, fuck. I started listening to the Decemberists very recently and... fuck. I was hoping to be inspired. Instead, they are making me feel insignificant, like the smallest ant of the songwriting world. Even if I become my best like Eliza Dushku I will still be barely noticeable besides these guys.

Exhibit A, from "Los Angeles, I'm Yours":

"There is a city by the sea
A gentle company
I don�t suppose you want to
And as it tells it's sorry tale
In harrowing detail
It's hollowness will haunt you
It's streets and boulevards
Orphans and oligarchs
And here's a plaintive melody
Truncated symphony
An ocean�s garbled vomit on the shore
Los Angeles, I�m yours"

Boulevard rhymed with oligarch? Fucking madness.

Exhibits B and C from "The Infanta":
"Within sight of the baronness
Seething spite for this live largesse
By her side sits the baron
Her barrenness barbs her"

"And above all this falderal
On a bed made of chaparral
She is laid, a coronal placed on her brow"

Baroness/barrenness? Double fuck. Falderal/chaparral/coronal? Triple-threat-hattrick-fuck. Stop this song writing madness. I could go on, but I'd run out of ways to say "fuck". I bet that bastard Colin Meloy wouldn't, and he'd rhyme it with words I have never even heard of.

"I found myself moonstruck
offended by the muck-a-muck
more magick than Ms. Clutterbuck.
His genius leaves me awestruck,
it makes me want to run amok.
Fuck."

Is it wrong to feel offended by the brilliance of art, to be unable to appreciate it because of how it changes your opinion of yourself? I feel like I had a dinner date with the Mona Lisa and, at the end of it, she kicked me in the crotch--now you know why she has that smile. As I reeled, she touched her dry, chapped lips to my ear and growled: "No one will ever half-ass a smile like me, so don't you dare try."

Well, it might be like that if Colin Meloy knew I existed.

Everyone has a unique paradigm, a different lens through which they view the world. For a time it seemed that exploring each paradigm, feeling each thought and seeing each sight in the way of another was a path towards beauty. Now I feel the views are fracturing and fragmenting and diverging. No one ever saw everything the same, but now we see it all so differently. There is no community, no context for the thoughts or the feelings. Every definition is different and there is no hope to understand. Can you converse when there is no common ground? We fight futilely to have these conversations anyways but what results are different disparate entities. Our conversation is nonsense; my conversation and your conversation share only words, not meaning. These conversation are ballads of narcissism, and to fight it is to fight everyone. I wish, for just once, there could be something definite and real, something permanent and true. I wonder what happened to me which ruined the possibility of truth?

I know I don't really want that but I can still long for it, still weep silently when realizing that we will never, ever, truly connect with each other. Conversation is the world in a microcosm. We can fight to understand and remain locked in perpetual grayness and stagnant acceptance, or we can fight for our own unique-like-everyone-else paradigm and create avoidable conflict. Perhaps all conflict is rooted in enforcing our identities? What a tragedy: To be actualized, we must tear each other down and thus only a fraction of us may ever be authentic. It's like soul-capitalism and it fucking sucks.

I feel the need to blog and don't feel the need to start a completely new blog. So, I'm coming back here.

---------------------------------------

The same lie gets hammered into our heads over and over by the soulless machinery of society. "Don't smoke!" they say. "Smoking isn't cool." Apparently somewhere along the line people had decided that smoking WAS cool, and then the GOVERNMENT decided they could fix that by disagreeing. Let me tell you, no one knows cool better than the Man, He Who Keeps You Down. I think a better thing for him to say would be, maybe, "Shit yeah, smoking is coo', dog. But imbibing nicotine will make your body stage a quiet revolution that goes unnoticed until one day in your late forties when you show up at your doctor's and he says you have the lungs of a 314 year old woman." Also, you might get cancer or emphysema or something. (Really, it is increasingly hard to make it through live without getting cancer. We freaking bathe in carcinogens. I challenge you to think of something you eat which doesn't have carcinogens in it. Got it? Well, too bad, you're on a computer which is giving you cancer with radiation. Hah. Also, it's a well-known fact that government ninjas break into your house every night to paint your sleeping body with uranium in order to make you more susceptible to government mind control.)

I'm here to tell you that smoking is cool. It doesn't have to be tobacco or pot or crack or anything like that, just the act of inhaling smoke from a burning tube is pretty awesome. I've been smoking Ye Olde Scale and Measure's Peppermint Dreams herbal smoke blend and I'm loving it. It calms me down, it won't give me cancer, it helps me mellow, and it won't get me arrested. That last part is pretty important if you like smoking in a public place, like... anywhere that isn't your house. I've always found it sexy, really. Maybe I have an oral fixation, but something about lips and cigarettes and smoke arouses me painfully. Ideally these lips belong to a woman, of course.

I'm rapidly fleeing my point, unfortunately. Pulling in the focus now: I enjoy the physical act of smoking regardless of what is being smoked. This is one of the reasons I find the herbal cigarettes to be so great; I get the feeling of smoking with some minor health benefits and minor drawbacks, but nothing compared to the dubious legality and pain of acquiring illegal smoke and nothing compared to the severe long-term health drawbacks of legal smoke. Hell, we haven't even talked about the cost.

All this talk of illegal drugs tempts me to write a post about the difference between entheogens and hallucinogens, but I don't really have the practical experience to back that one up. Never tried one. I do think it is a shame that they are restricted to use by native practitioners whose cultures have a history of their use. Peyote is a good example of this.

Hey, I bet my mom had a spiritual experience with LSD once. Does that mean I can take it?

Good afternoon, gentle readers.

I am sad to say I won't actually be participating in the WARP contest. Now that it is upon me I'm finding myself not at all interested in the marathon.

That book I offered as a prize will still be given away... I'll have to get it to Gaelyn to hold for the Last (Wo)Man Standing.

There's no way I'm getting 400 words out of this.

http://infra-azure.org/main/?page_id=2%20Target=

Check out that link. It leads to a program called Lunabar which places icons in your system tray that show the phase of the moon as well as the zodiac sign it is in. Clicking on the icons brings up a full astrologic almanac which gives incredible amounts of information about the sun, moon, and zodiac. It is way, way, way more information than I know what to do with. It's very handy if you care about astrological correspondences but don't want to do research. Like me.

If you've been following the internet recently, you may have heard of the 2009 H1N1 flu outbreak.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_H1N1_flu_outbreak#cite_note-who_statement_2009-04-25-14

It started in Mexico City, now cases are being reported in various places across the US. Texas, New York, California, and Kansas all have suspected or confirmed cases. I've seen the word "pandemic" thrown around a lot. The funny thing about this swine flu is it apparently is more dangerous to healthy young people because it provokes overreaction of the immune system. The stronger your immune system, the stronger the reaction. This reaction is called a cytokine storm. This is what happened with the Spanish Flu in 1918.

So, I am forced to conclude that I am going to die a terrible horrible diseased death by the end of the month. Therefore, I present to you my will:

No one gets anything. Bury me with my stuff so I can have it in the afterlife. I will rock that biznatch. When I meet my ancestors, they will be all like, "Dude, that's some awesome stuff." See, they are all really old, they've never seen an ipod before.

"Dude, verily, granteth me a listen on yon songbox." And lo, I will, I will granteth several listens. Then I will introduce them to the wonders of XBox and ramen. Maybe if they are nice I will give them some caffeine or socks. What did people do in prehistoric, pre-sock times? Those things are important. Seriously. Uh. Where was I?

Oh. Right.

When I have them addicted to modern luxury I will become their ruler. I will reign over my dead minions from my kmart futon throne and then, as the world's population dwindles and the ranks of my undead horde swell, I will marshal my forces for war. My phantom legions will pour forth from the gates of the underworld to take revenge on the architects of our destruction: the wretched, diseased swine.

When my vengeance is complete I will enjoy a bacon buffet of such caloric intensity that Morgan Spurlock will give me props. When my struggle in the service of humanity is long forgotten, this feast will still be remembered. Bards will sing songs about it. There will be epics written about it, and all these stories will be the only knowledge remaining to be unearthed by the spacefaring archaeologists who visit us after our the end of the human race in 2012.

So, in conclusion, Samuel L. Jackson was right. Pigs are filthy animals.

(432)

Surrounded by candlelight, drinking herbal tea, and soaking in a bubble bath I thought to myself, "Damn, I'm sure glad I'm secure in my masculinity."

I don't believe in hiding my religion. I never lie about it, never pretend to be anything else, never even consider it. Being completely open about it, on the other hand, is something else.

Due to my early teachings I hold the belief that an offering of food or water made to the gods should be buried or poured out upon the ground, not down the sink or into the trash. This is all well and good unless you live in a crowded apartment complex. After coming home from work today I noticed an offering of black coffee which I had left for my god the other night. It had been sitting out long enough for him to have his fill, I figured, so I had to dispose of it. I wanted to just pour it down the sink but of course I feel guilty doing that, as if I am not properly honoring the gods. So, as all the little children were making their way into the apartment complex from school, I wandered down my stairs and into the grass with a small glass full of old coffee. I don't know if anyone noticed me as I nonchalantly poured the coffee into the ground.

I expect that, normally, pouring an offering into the ground isn't much different from pouring it into the sink. The gods took note of this offering, though. It wasn't just the coffee I gave, I also made a sacrifice of my own comfort. I think they appreciated that, and I think they smiled a little when I forced myself to be brave enough to go do something weird for an audience. If people aren't looking at me funny when I am doing something magickal and interacting with the other world, I am probably doing it wrong.

That said, I still have 100 words to go! So, let's talk about being weird. (I define weird as being different from the norm in a way that doesn't make sense to most people, here) It is a little peculiar to be weird just for weird's sake, but if we are being weird for another reason we might as well enjoy it, right? If I start pouring drinks out to make people look at me funny then I just want attention. While I'm doing it for spiritual purposes, however, I may as well enjoy my differences and whatever funny looks they bring.

415 words, or thereabouts. No editing on this one. Wasn't flowing. Oh well.

Take a look at that quote in the subject line: "We have each chosen to be born into this time." I found it in an excerpt on the Four Quarters site. http://www.4qf.org/_Beltaine/index.htm

That's a pretty powerful idea right there. Stuff is going down. We are perpetually on the brink of war. We're running out of oil. Global is warming. The Mayan calender cycles. Everywhere you turn you can find doomsday predictions--I recently read about one called The Greening in a book by a Gede Parma, who said that there'd be a crazy apocalypse orchestrated by the gods to bring forests back to cover the world. (I discounted this immediately, then the next day saw the same phrase used in an incredibly unlikely place, so... could it be a message? Regardless, "'The Greening' of (my company)" will continue as more people choose to receive their EOBs online instead of in paper form, according to our company's intranet)

With all of this chaos, one might be tempted to sit and ask, "Why me? Why now? Why do I have to be around for the end of the world?" Oh, stop being so dramatic! But seriously, we CHOSE to be here for this. If bad stuff is going down, we came here to be here for it. Did you choose to be here to experience the end? Or did you chose to be here to do something about it? Either is valid, I'm sure, but I am inspired by this idea. I think my soul is a go-getter soul. If my current personality carries over at all between incarnations, then I know exactly what my soul was thinking when it saw the world was going to end: "Man, I'm going there, and I'm gonna kick some butt." It gives me some insight into a bit of my life's purpose. I'm here to make things better some how because trying it will be fun for my soul. Maybe I'll lose, but my soul tends not to do that very much so it probably didn't plan for that contingency.

I bet my soul likes extreme sports.

I get the feeling that, if the world were to go all apocalypse on us, I'd end up as some form of shaman for a tribe of unwashed wasteland folk. Don't know why... it could either by a vision or a product of reading too many fantasy novels and occult books. Still, someone has to take care of the spiritual needs of a people with practical magicks, and someone has to be ready to step in and diplomacize with spirits who are probably none to happy with humans for armageddon.

Am I saying I came to this earth to do that? No, not at all. I don't really buy in to any doomsday prophecies and intend to continue living a non-doomed life for many decades. However, it does give me strength to know that I chose to come here for whatever tests may appear in order to defeat them soundly. "Everything happens for a reason" makes more sense when I am the reason.

(536 moowooooooords)

I was taking my lunchtime walk around 11 AM today when I saw some pretty freaking amazing clouds. I don't remember often seeing clouds like that here in Florida, all white and fluffy and huge. It felt kinda like one of my many homes in New England for a bit, with the big white clouds and a cool breeze and birds and dragonflies and grass that seemed as green as grass is supposed to be but only because my glasses tint in the sun and make things look a little greener. Have you ever been up north and felt the grass? It's soft. Soft! Soft and thin and cool. You can lay in that stuff and go to sleep, it's wonderful. It is completely different from the stuff down here, evil green weeds which lend new meaning to the phrase 'blades of grass'. I bet if you went barefoot your feet would get lacerated. You might not see any blood because the death shrub carpet drinks it down greedily, but that's beside the point.

Seriously, I want to talk about clouds. CLOUDS, man. I was completely spellbound by these things as I walked circles around the parking lot. It's fun to try and see shapes in them, dogs and cats and giants and wizards and... wow, a giant &$%# with hands where its testicles should be. Ew. I saw that! I have to wonder what it says about me when random visual noise is interpreted in the most gigeresque manner possible. If I were feeling more magickal I probably would have tried to use the clouds as an impromptu oracle. After seeing that thing, I thank the gods I didn't try.

Speaking of oracles from random visual noise, have you ever tried looking deep into television static? (I take no credit for the following epiphany as I found it spelled out while reading a book) Well, you may have heard in a science class that television static is actually caused by the background radiation which permeates the entire universe. These radio waves (At least, I think they are radio waves... maybe not, maybe it's a much longer wavelength. Look, Electricity & Magnetsm was a long time ago) are actually residual energy from the Big Bang. So, if you observe these waves, you are observing signals from the creation of the universe. Pretty cool, huh? But wait, there's more! If you are familiar with Quantum Physics, you know that observing something changes it... so as you observe these waves, you're changing the way the Big Bang went down. That's wild. Incidentally, looking at these waves provides insight into the beginning of everything, and therefore can be used potentially as insight into what is currently happening. So, assuming you achieve a trance of some sort, you can use a TV static snow globe as an oracle.

(None of this is probably perfectly scientifically accurate, but that never bothered me even before I became a practicing Wiccan/pagan/witch/magician/whatever. My Quantum Mechanics professor once looked at me like I was stupid when I asked her if I was the only person in existence and was creating the universe as I went along observing the heck out of everything. Needless to say, her answer was "no".)

So, um, merry part and stuff.

(570 words. That number has a secret magickal meaning, and by reading this entry you have subjected yourself to it unknowingly. HAHAHAHAHA <----sinister laugh.

Nah, I'm just joshing. (Who says that anymore?))

(Author's note: Keeping my language family-friendly is becoming difficult. I'm doing my best. Please accept and understand my awkward substitutions for those evil mind-tainting, soap-in-mouth-requiring, four letter words. I can't help it, I'm just hardcore and edgy. Nothing says edgy like &%$#$.)

Astral Projection is cool. At least, I think it is cool. Word on the street is it is pretty banging. People say it is a nice way to spend an evening. I've heard that all the cool kids are doing it. All of the cool kids besides me.

I've been looking into Astral Projection ever since I found a very simple explanation of how to do it on this intarweb. The first time I tried, I freaked the fudge out because I could feel myself separating from my body. Never done that before, it's kinda weird. Freaking the fudge out negatively impacted my calm, so it pretty much spoiled my session there. The second time I tried, I couldn't quite get the hang of it and got frustrated, and nothing spoils my trances faster than frustration.

The third time I tried was last night. I'd had a glass of wine an hour or so earlier and no matter what I tried I couldn't get my heart rate to slow the hell down. I ended up doing some drumming and going to bed. Sleep got weird.

Throughout my life I've had dreams with tactile components. Ya know, I see things and feel them while I'm sleeping. It's not common, but every now and then I'll have a dream where I fall and tactilely hit the ground, get jolted all pancake like. Sometimes I'll deal with one of those night terror things. Last night was pretty intense. If I was a better writer, I could probably write a short story in the vein of acid pulp sci-fi about it, detailing the black and the music and the pain in spinning corners of the multiverse where man should fear to tread and et cetera and et cetera.

I don't really remember most of the dream, especially now, twelve hours later. The first part was definitely some sort of astral travel, apparently the non-memorable sort judging by my non-memorabling of it. The second part was, in retrospect, pretty freaking crazy. Imagine traveling through the astral sea, (Yes, I'm stealing a term from D&D 4E because I don't think there is an appropriate one that I have read) the realm of pure mind-humping crazy colors that don't really exist for any reason other than as inspiration for tie-dyed shirts. I was spinning down this whirlpool of decayed purples and pinks when a figure appeared. As you would probably expect, the sickly whirlpool living figure was a big black evil shadow guy. I was just trying to chill out and surf the Astral and this dude had to show up and ruin it. He gave off these evil evil evil vibes, vibes of supreme cosmic douchitude. Shadow Douche said something sinister which I don't remember clearly right now, possibly because it blasted my sanity a little bit. He probably laughed a sinister villain muahaha laugh. I told him I wasn't afraid because I had the Lord and Lady to protect me. (This sort of thing is why I sleep with my pentacle on. I've only taken it off once since I first put it on, and only for a minute then.)

I have to take a second here to thank the Lord and Lady for being supremely powerful and supremely helpful to me when I am a little out of my league. And now, back to our regularly scheduled program.

You ever see a video of one of those terrible storms at sea? Winds are blowing, waves are sloshing, and sailors are holding on for dear life while their little tiny boat is tossed about at the mercy of the sea. The sailors will probably be alright if they can just ride the waves out and HOLD ON. That poor guy who lets go of the rope and is washed over board is never heard from again. Well, it kinda felt like I was riding a boat made of my own shields and the love of the Lord and Lady while being tossed about in waves of malevolence. I could feel it washing over and through me, pulses of black shocks that stiffened my poor sleeping body like I had decided to lick an alternating current ice cream cone. I knew as long as I held on, I would be alright. So I did, I held on, shouting things that I don't remember about how I wasn't afraid and I was safe and how doucheshadow had no power over me. Eventually I woke up. I'm pretty sure that means I won, for some definition of the word.

So what does this dream mean? Damned if I know. It's probably a warning to be careful, or a manifestation of my fears regarding astral travel. I don't think I REALLY went to the Astral to do inept battle with a source of cosmic evil, but I suppose I can't really rule that out. The battle was symbolic of something, that I am sure, and if it is symbolic then it is totally real on a magickal level... so maybe I was fighting my fears?

Seriously though, if that was a source of cosmic evil my ego is going to get huge and I am going to get insufferable. I'll be like that guy from Salem who wrestled with the devil every night. I mean, sure, I almost lost, but if that's the best the cosmos has to throw at me I'm not too scared.

I wonder why I seem to be casting myself as a guy who fights evil spirits? This must be what happens when I miss my bimonthly D&D game. Speaking of D&D, my group is still looking for some folk to fill some slots. Drop me a line if you are interested. We may be changing our hours and schedule or the way we play so don't expect to hear anything definite back from me for a little while.

(Author's Note #2: I don't really want to be one of those people who talks about how awesome their magick power level is (over 9000, by the way) but I can't help but feel like some weird stuff is happening to me.)

1114 words. That's a lot of words.

I just heard that line on a Beggin' Strips commercial. It has nothing to do with the actual blog post you are about to read.

Subtitle: How I became a pagan, Challenge #3.

I still remember my first exposure to the crazy world of paganism. I was around ten years old. (Does this mean I have been practicing for thirteen years? Maybe. Maybe I have. Take that, world.) My mom had left a copy of D.J. Conway's Celtic Magic on the coffee table in our apartment. Celtic Magic is a fun book... a reviewer on Amazon calls it "vacuous, the worst of Llewellyn", but that's beside the point. The point is, I was sitting here, reading this book, when my mom saw me.

She said, and I paraphrase as it has been thirteen years, "Oh, are you interested in celtic history? I have some books that talk about it."

I replied, "No, I'm interested in magick."

Then she glared at me. Yaaaay for being open about things. I finished reading the book anyways. Since then, I've been exploring the field on and off over various periods of my life. There'd be a book here, a bit of meditation there, and a prayer to a storm god around here somewhere. None of my friends ever really cared for it so I kept it all to myself, never really explored it in any depth.

Then, about a year and a half ago, I found Dragon's store in the New Port Richey flea market. The Wicca 101 class looked interesting, if a bit pricey. I signed up. Woo.

That was probably my real introduction. I got an altar, started celebrating esbats and sabbats and all that, started casting spells and wearing a pentacle. Four months after the start of class, I dedicated as a Wiccan. That was a little less than one year ago. It has been a crazy ride since. Not as crazy as I would have liked, but that's probably my fault. It is about to get really crazy.

Around midsummer, it'll have been a Year and a DAY since my dedication. You know what that means, right? It's time to move another rung up the ladder.

Apparently if I was in a traditional coven, I would be potentially eligible to move up a degree after studying with them for a year and a day. I don't really do that whole coven thing, though, so there's no one initiating me through their degree system. That's fine with me. My plan is to hold an initiation for myself anyways.

I have no idea how I am going to do it. It would be cool to hold it at midnight on Midsummer, but I am planning on being at the Phoenix Council's Midsummer and I'm 99% sure that my closest pagan friends will not be going because they can't afford it. So, no luck there. I need the people I love and care about to be around to help me along and, at the very least, witness it. Actually... my calender tells me Midsummer is on a Sunday. I suppose I could just stay a day longer and do it then. I have some ideas about what I want for the ritual. It's a tough thing to do, usually you go into these things unaware and let the mysteries expose themselves to you. There's intended to be shock, surprise, and new information revealed. It is hard to do that if you are writing it yourself. I suppose I could just write in parts for the cosmos to speak to me. They will certainly oblige as this is a reasonably momentous occasion.

(643!)

Apparently there are legal brands of absinthe being sold in the US now. Thujone, the big nasty chemical in wormword, is banned, but apparently a law revision defines Thujone Free as being able to contain a tiny amount, or something. There's brands being made with most of it filtered out now and, hopefully, this sort of thing is attainable at the liquor store down the road.

Absinthe: In case black and pentacles weren't gothic enough for you.

I, a 23 year old man, am going through the Sunday morning paper for coupons.

This is screwed up. Where did I go wrong in life? Is there some cosmic event I am unaware of which is causing my life to intersect with that of a fifty seven year old woman?

I must have stole her morning. I bet this woman is feeling a compulsion to spend a half hour surfing D&D threads on rpg.net instead of her usual coupon clipping.

But seriously, I can get 50% off of two seperate items at Jo-Ann's if I get there before Friday! And 40 cents off sargento cheese.

Okay. Spencemeister's challenge time. Family! What does it mean to me?

I do not know if I will be able to get four hundred words out of this. I will try. Astute readers will notice I am doing my best to avoid using contractions right now.

I have a hard time with family. Mine and I just are not very close. There are probably a number of reasons which I do not really want to go into here. Don't say something on the internet if you don't want everyone to know it, ya know? I think it has something to do with all the moving around I have done. After a boarding school in high school and some years in college, we just grew a bit apart and stuff. I relate to my parents more as individuals than parents.

Friends are a kind of surrogate family. I still talk with many of my friends from MIT every day or so and they provide a lot of context for my life. My friends from my dorm have a webforum that we all use even though 90% of us are no longer at the school for whatever reason. I think that is one of the important things about relationships in general, the context they provide for our lives. Being a dangerous loner who plays by his own rules and no one else's (not even his own) is great fun, but without others to be with and compare ourselves to we don't really know who we are. Things get gray and indeterminate. We lose ourselves. On a lower concept note, gotta have other folks around to talk to.

I happen to be in a pretty awesome relationship right now with a smoking hot girl who is also amazing in several other ways. I guess I can't really call her family, but maybe one day. She's helping me understand the good parts of family. As a group, we balance each other. We complement each other. We make decisions and start new things and pretty much become better than the sum of our parts. We're here to support each other and make each other laugh and lend an ear if work is trying to suck out someone's soul with a straw. That must be what family is, a sort of power-love-support-unit. Everyone pulls and we move mountains. Leave no man behind. And, um, stuff.

Look, I'm tired.

(427 unedited, unflowing, drivel words.)

The challenge has been met! Almost everyone has responded with an interesting thing or three to say about their deity/path, so I suppose it's my turn to talk about my big dude.

I don't know his name, but I'm familiar with him from meditations and workings. He's a minstrel, a dancer, and a good-natured trickster. He looks sorta like this guy here:



Yeah, that's Ian Anderson. I bet it has been awhile since some of you have seen him! Anyways, take Ian Anderson and add a splash of Tom Bombadil and a generous helping of Jerry Cornelius, then mix unevenly until brilliant cosmic lumps form. His lute is the music of the spheres, each string a fundamental force. When the physicists get nosy, he pulls out a piano to mess with them. Calabi-Yau shapes are his fault. These metaphors probably don't make much sense to anyone as you either have no idea what I am talking about or know what I am talking about and can therefore point out why they don't make much sense. Alas.

I bet this guy hangs out with Shiva and Hermes. I mean, I don't really know much about him except he is always there waiting to tell me something paradoxical and enlightening if I go too far afield in meditation. He's the galaxy's partner in the Spiral Dance, or maybe the band for it. Maybe both. He's a crazy Tull God, he can do that. He's chaos, but the friendly kind of chaos that you'd find if you did a hit of Timothy Leary. If you look too deeply in his eyes, you'll see yourself staring back except yourself will probably be wearing a tutu and suspenders.

...and he's order, too, not just chaos, he's the order of rhythm and rhyme that spins out art from the random wool of stellar sheep. I bet when he farts it is a G chord. He forms water into starry snowflakes and teaches fractals to fractalate.

Really, though, he spends most of his time chilling out. We should follow his example and occasionally enjoy a bit of smoke or drink while relaxing and just being, just letting everything that is bombard us with the beauty of being. That's awesome alliteration, amigos.

I'm still working on finding a goddess. If she's anything like the god I worship, I'm sure she's out there laughing at me while I look for her. "Check out the charge of the goddess, numbnuts. I'm inside you." Then she probably says something dirty about being inside me.

As a sidenote, another god I occasionally pay respects to is Lugus. He's the gallic god who is supposedly Lugh's historic predecessor. Caeser called him the "Gallic Mercury". He's all about travel and trade and excellence. Anyways, my last name is Lugo. It comes from a town in Spain which was named after someone who was named after him, allegedly, so in a way he's my Bacon-degree namesake. You know, seven times removed or something.

As far as my religious practices go, I follow a basic Wiccan practice based on Buckland's big blue book with a bit of Cunningham thrown in for good measure. I'm slowly adding different things to my practices and changing from Buckland's formula, but it's a great base from which to diverge in my opinion. Buckland gives the foundation, but Cunningham inspires the passion. That man freaking loved nature and Wicca and it carries over in his writing in a way you don't often see.

(608 words. That's 582 more words than there are letters in the alphabet!)

I want to have a midnight tea party now. I can't get that phrase out of my head. Maybe I can do it as a debut for my new-old-by-way-of-Sarah-Roberge dining room set? Midnight. My house. All the tea your organs can handle. Booya. Crumpets are optional but available for the serious tea enthusiast. (Seriously, would anyone come to this? Oh, and thanks for the table, Sarah.) I can't help but feel I would get a much better response for this tea party at my old college dorm. At any rate, maybe I'll pick a day and do this thing.

I want to share this quote with you: "They [Wiccans] could cut back on ritual overhead time by just worshipping a dickgirl instead." It made me giggle. I found it while reading Chaos Magic forums... can't get mad at a Chaote, (Anyone else pronounce that like Choad? *innocent whistle, move along, these aren't the droids you're looking for) even if he is telling you to worship a futabomination. I suppose this is only true if what he is saying is both hilarious and offensive.

I want to tell you about the smell of Nair. It smells like someone set up a very busy barber shop in a very sweaty man's perianal area. Also, it failed to remove all of the body hair I wanted removed, so now I have a smelly bathroom, a washcloth full of satan-chemicaled body hair, and hair on my shoulders.

I want to know how often you practice magick... not just ritual, not just an esbat or sabbat, but a full on spell with a purpose. Yes, you. I'm talking to you. Not the person reading over your shoulder, but the man (woman) manning (womanning) the keyboard. Take a couple seconds, leave a comment, lemme know. Then let your shoulder watcher have his/her/hir ( :( ) say. Tell two friends, and have them tell five friends. Make sure it is at least five friends. It is extra work for your friends, but it balances out because they get the sublime joy of being your friend.

I want to propose a challenge to any of my fellow WARP Blogfest pre-bloggers. Theme entries! I propose a theme. Then I write about it and so do you. Then someone else proposes one. It'll be great fun. It might even spark some dialogue, or some controversy, or a blogwar. Maybe a witch war. A WARP Blogfest pre-bloggers' blogwitchwar. Nah, I'm kidding. I don't really argue on the internet because of how futile it is. I say what I think, you say what you think, then I make fun of your mom and repeat what I think, then you call me stupid and repeat what you think, then someone shows up and posts a picture of a cat with the most horribly garbled, unfunny meme text ever. Look at that dopey beast. "i can haz stupid meme nomnomnom" Don't provoke that, please.

If you made it this far, then I propose the following topic for Some Time Over The Weekend: Your God and Goddess. Tell me which god you worship primarily, or which goddess, or both. Tell me about them. Make one up if you want. You need 400 words? Tell me a story about one of them. Myths are cool.

(585 words. Hahahahahaha. ahaha.)

Okay, so the previous post was misleading. I practiced the LBRP correctly again and I have very little interesting to report on that. If anyone has any experience with working it and has time or interest in discussing a little of the theory and concepts behind it, please let me know. I am trying to research it better because it still seems too similar to circle casting for me. I know it is not really the same, but the similarities are enough that I need to get a very clear conceptual picture of what it and its energies are supposed to accomplish so I can work it correctly without letting my circle casting mindset (and thus energies) spill over into the working.

So, really, not a whole lot interesting to report there. I guess I could go into greater detail about what parts of it aren't gelling for me and discuss why and how they aren't as well as what steps could be taken to understand it better... but you don't want that. No, you have come to the SteelWitch's blog for one thing: Sensationalism. It is ever my goal to please the masses so I shall deliver that which you crave. Prepare yourself, reader, for the descent into the sordid underworld of HAIR REMOVAL.

If you know me well you probably know me as a specimen of perfection first, an omnipotent messiah second, and probably a hairy guy third. Back and shoulder hair has always been a quiet chink in my omnipotent messianic perfection, one that I recently decided to resolve. According to a certain space age series of tubes (That's the internet, for those of you unfamiliar with the vernacular of our times) razors are not the way to go with body hair. Seinfeld proved this pretty conclusively in my mind. If you shave it off, it just grows back THICKER. You'll turn into a Wolfman if you stop shaving. Waxing is apparently more reliable. You don't turn into a werewolf (or wolfwere) but you do have to suffer 'intense' pain. Plus, it seems pretty difficult to actually wax one's own back. What is a starkly handsome pre-chewbacca to do?

Well, while walking around CVS one day I happened to find a bottle of Nair. Fate would have it that it was on sale for 50% off! I assumed it was just a good deal. Now, after spending some time with the warnings on the back of the bottle, I am not so sure. Maybe they were just trying to get rid of the demon cream?

I shall faithfully reproduce the messages on the back of the bottle for you here:

NAIR MEN BODY CREAM
FOR CHEST, BACK, LEGS, AND ARMS
NOT FOR USE ON HEAD OR FACE (UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE SCREAMING)

DIRECTIONS: Please read WARNINGS section before use (if you value your life). Flip cap open. Squeeze cream into palm. Gently apply cream evenly and completely to cover hair with a thick, even layer. DO NOT RUB IN. (FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE DON'T RUB IT IN) Wash hands immediately after application. (Do not touch your face, pets, children, or furniture until you have washed your hands.) After 8 minutes, test a small area. IF hair does not wipe off easily, leave on a little longer. DO NOT EXCEED FIFTEEN MINUTES. (George Washington was the last person to exceed fifteen minutes. You don't want wooden teeth, do you?)

TO REMOVE HAIR: Gently (Gently, you fool!) wipe off cream and hair with a damp washcloth. DO NOT RUB. (Rubbing will anger the Nair.) Once all hair has been removed, RINSE SKIN THOROUGHLY (If it falls off, you probably rubbed too hard) with lukewarm water in the shower. Keep container closed when not in use (or else the horrors within may escape and resume collecting Egypt's firstborn sons).

WARNINGS: IRRITATION OR ALLERGIC REACTION MAY OCCUR WITH SOME PEOPLE, EVEN AFTER PRIOR USE WITHOUT ADVERSE EFFECT. THEREFORE, TEST BEFORE EACH USE BY APPLYING PRODUCT TO A SMALL PART OF THE AREA WHERE HAIR IS TO BE REMOVED AND WAIT 24 HOURS. IF SKIN APPEARS NORMAL, PROCEED. DO NOT USE ON IRRITATED, SUNBURNED, INFLAMED, OR BROKEN SKIN. KEEP AWAY FROM EYES. SHOULD PRODUCT TOUCH THE EYES, WASH THOROUGHLY WITH LUKEWARM WATER (Just kidding. That won't help. Go buy some dark glasses and a cane.) IF IRRITATION OCCURS, CONSULT YOUR PHYSICIAN. DO NOT USE ON HEAD, FACE, AROUND EYES, IN NOSE, EARS, OR ON NIPPLES, PERIANAL, OR GENITAL AREAS. (MAN, MY COUSIN JOE TRIED THAT AND HIS PERIANUS FELL RIGHT OFF. Fell clean off, seriously. Now he works in the circus. Everyone's like, hey, check out the incredible no-perianus man. Only fifteen cents. I think he can tell your future, too.) KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN. (Nair is actually sin-soaked embryonic fluid from the stillborn horrors which lurk in the non-euclidean horror-womb of your darkest nightmares.)

.....

Man, that's some bad stuff. Okay, maybe I embellished it a little.... but really, not that much. Cut out the stuff in paranthesis and you have the actual warning text. They even bolded some of those capitalized phrases, mainly the parts about not rubbing the nair into your skin. I'm actually a little scared to use it. You need to test and wait 24 hours before EACH time you use it!

I tried some on a little spot on my lower left shoulder. If you should happen to see a screaming armless freak howling its insanity while dancing to hellish pipe music only its own tortured ears can hear around 54 and Rowan before these next twenty four hours are over, you can probably surmise I had an allergic reaction.


(983 words per http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/script2/countwords.shtml)

"Midnight tea party."

Just had to share that. I'll post something a wee bit longer about dual adventures in banishing later today. Yes, that's right, I experimented with both the LBRP (again) and Nair. Good times.