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Hey guys, I have a tarot set that I no longer want and would like to swap it, but is ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) swap_witch the only community around for that in terms of Paganism/Witchcraft? It hasn't been updated since February! |
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My book is now available on Amazon.com! I was wondering if maybe somebody could post a (hopefully nice) review there since there's nothing so far?
Link here.
Thank you! |
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Dance, when you're broken open. Dance, if you've torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you're perfectly free.
— Mevlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi
I am quite moved lately by the dancing prisoners of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center. Violence and overcrowding were constant problems there, and the prison "security consultant", one Byron Garcia, came upon a new way the engage the prisoners. It started out as exercise and has spiraled into something much more.
There is something about these 1,000 men in orange, dancing together with full engagement, that gives me hope.
We throw away people in prison. Most often, they do not get another chance to make things right, to change. Some people may be beyond rehabilitation, but many, I think, are just like you and me. It is hard to change. Someone has to give us a chance. Sometimes a situation loosens something for even a moment. Sometimes a mentor or friend makes a crack in our shell. Sometimes that person is ourselves.
Foucault talked about our propensity to become self-policing, to become our own jailers and to guard the prison walls for each other. We trap ourselves within our own personalities, within our small group cultures. It takes a lot of courage, persistence, and effort to make our way out. But if we imprison ourselves, we can also become the agents of our freedom.
Sometimes commitment is required, and sometimes this freedom requires laughter. Sometimes it requires the sweet release of dancing. I often say that dancing saved my life. I truly believe this. As an intellectual who stuffed her emotions into a ball, was trapped in her head, and confused by the most simple human interactions, dancing - which brought me into my body and the joys of the senses - shifted something inside me in a profound way. It started my journey toward freedom. Without movement, I do not think my walk toward greater autonomy would have been possible.
So I see something of myself inside these dancing prisoners. I also see my parents, my students, my teachers and my friends. I think of Emma Goldman, and her joyous revolution:
At the dances I was one of the most untiring and gayest. One evening a cousin of Sasha, a young boy, took me aside. With a grave face, as if he were about to announce the death of a dear comrade, he whispered to me that it did not behoove an agitator to dance. Certainly not with such reckless abandon, anyway. It was undignified for one who was on the way to become a force in the anarchist movement. My frivolity would only hurt the Cause.
I grew furious at the impudent interference of the boy. I told him to mind his own business. I was tired of having the Cause constantly thrown into my face. I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from convention and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. "I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody's right to beautiful, radiant things." Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal.
Shall we find, and then live, our beautiful ideal? Shall we dance?
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JaIOU
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Jul. 9th, 2009 @ 01:02 pm
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The State of California sent me an IOU yesterday, which cannot be cashed until October. At first the certificate made me laugh, reminding me of the $1 check the state sent last year as part of the economic stimulus package. But then my thoughts turned to all the folks on disability or those in need of mental health services... what are these people going to do? The State of California, like many of its denizens, is officially broke.
Immediately, the certificate went on my prosperity altar with a ring of the little boar bell, thoughts of thanks for good things on their way, and a prayer for all of those in real need.
Anne Hill posted yesterday about the Half Empty, Half Full times we live in. They are challenging, and ever changing in each moment. How are we to navigate these times? As we always do, we keep returning to what is in front of us. We make space in every moment.
I can focus on the trouble in China, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and Guantanamo Bay or on the good news from Massachusetts, India and friends. Or I can hold all of these together, knowing that somewhere a tree is cut down and in another place, someone is planting. There is not perfect balance, and I have to live with that, too. The world is varied, just as my life is. What will I choose to pay attention to today? What can I allow space for?
Meanwhile, someone sent me a fabulous paean to Ganesh, who among other things, can help us to overcome obstacles. I encourage you to sing along:
I pray to Ganesh to take away the stress / and pave the way into a place that’s blessed / centered in the chest where the breath is felt / when your blessed by Ganesh than the stress can melt... when I say "Jai" you say "Ganesh!"
Jai! (Ganesh!)
Jai! (Ganesh!)
Jai! (Ganesh!)
We may be broke, but we don't have to be broken. |
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Just a reminder that tomorrow will be the last Feri Circle at Mystic Dream that I help facilitate. If you want to see me before I move that would probably be the best place. |
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So here I am, at the VNV concert, waiting for the first opening act to come on, and only NOW does it occur to me that I should have worn khaki shorts and a polo shirt. :-P |
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*Clears throat*
Paul Borda the creator of Dryad Designs,
Now has,
STATUES IN SILVER FINISH!
That is all :DWhilst Pondering:  excited Current Music: Husband sleeping. |
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my friend ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) valetoile's amazing improv troupe parallelogramophonograph (pgraph.com) is going to be in boston TOMORROW (thursday)!
the first time i saw them perform, they evolved a satirical post-apocalyptic dystopian play with multiple persistent characters from basically nothing. not only did it make sense, it was hysterically funny. color me extremely impressed.
info here:
http://valetoile.livejournal.com/173701.html
July 9th, 8pm - Boston (Improv Boston) - Some Like it Improvised |
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I've been working on the Vodou website tonight, just completed the page that introduces the L'wa and the page for Papa Legba. I took some photos of our altar for Papa Legba for the site and thought that so long as I was loading them onto the general website, I though I would share them here for you as well ... I hope you like them!
( Papa Legba, Open the way for me, Legba Antibon, Open the way for me, Open the way for me Papa that I my pass, and when I return, I will thank the L'wa )Whilst Pondering:  exanimate Current Music: Alistair's sleepy noises |
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As usual, on this day I enjoin you to read Frederick Douglass. This year, I don't have commentary. You may make up your own.
blessed be |
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Chas set up this altar for his mom the day after she died. Some flowers, a glass of water, a white candle, some lavender flowers in some Florida water, her wedding album from her second marriage turned to a page with pictures of her with Chas, her eyeglasses, and a dish of her favorite treat: Rocky Road ice cream. Blessed be, Patt. You are missed. 
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I talk a lot about epiphanies – touches from divine source – and how, though they feel transformative, most often do not have lasting results because the way we live our lives does not support change. This is what I mean when I say we need to bring our lives into alignment with desire and will.
The great American writer Jean Toomer states:
We must not expect one act of liberation, one note
of transformation, to produce a whole new being.
It takes a well-spent lifetime, and perhaps more, to
crystallize in us that for which we exist.
The growth of a human being is a dynamic symphony
of forces playing in this field of force that is
ourselves.
We start with gifts. Merit comes from what we make
of them.
All beings find it difficult to merit growth beyond
growth.
What growth are you willing to embrace, and then let go of so it may shift and change? The tree does not cling to the first flush of green nor to the fullness of fruit. The tree is simply in process, along with all that lives and dies and lives again. We often expect things to go quickly for us, having lost a sense of cycle, and season, and the subtle shifts of earth. The mountain is not as stable as it looks. The whole world dances. Growth accrues over time, slowly, not in a sudden burst. A sudden bursting may signify the cracking open of the old and the rising of the new, but nothing remains in that state.
It is only in our willingness to sense the lessons of each act of liberation that we gain in true power, and the suppleness that will sustain our practices and engage us fully in a deep commitment to our lives and, by extension, the lives of every other being. Every other being: every cup, car, and tree, every house, wave, and mote of dust, every badger and every flea.
What do you desire? What is your will? Do these two meet within you? Is something brought to birth, or do you starve it until it withers inside? Can you hear the dynamic symphony of this very day? |
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Jul. 3rd, 2009 @ 02:05 pm
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 yeah bitches!! |
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For me, Feri Witchcraft is an exacting cultivation of Will. Being a warrior tradition, what we struggle with is our own freedom. We live in an oppressive society, clearly, and we must struggle every day to free ourselves from the slavery of our own delusions about ourselves, our lives, and the world through which we move. We have been conditioned by culture, our parents and teachers, environment, circumstance, and the way in which we can perceive the world has been made convenient. Yet when we are free, we are able to see more choices stretching out from the moment we find ourselves in, and are able to act more creatively, more spontaneously from our center. These choices are extensions of our deepening self-knowledge and our movement through the world.
I disagree with Robert Anton Wilson, who said that the only thing you we can be certain of is what is going on in our own nervous system, implying that probably our knowledge of our self is readily, almost automatically, accessible. It is my experience that access to our Deep Self (and I use this term not to refer to only our Godsoul/divine spark/Will, but to all our parts while in communication with one another) requires that we develop keen attention to all of our parts (and the uncovering of personality parts yet hidden to us). In many ways, without the Great Work of Self-Gnosis, we are blind even to vast stretches of our inner landscape. What does this tell us about the outer landscape through which we move and what we can see of that? Why do we think there is a separation between inner and outer? :P
When we are engaged in the work of self-possession and personal evolution, of growing more fully into ourselves, we cultivate the attention to see ourselves with more clarity. It is our hope that all our parts might come into fuller communication, that we might come into deeper communion with the world around us (including other beings), and achieve more resonance with our purpose. This is it -- when we are engaged in the Work, we struggle, every day, against our unhealthy impulses: our inner demons, our habitual mis-perceptions about ourselves, the world, our connections, against habits of action that though these things may have stemmed from a place of self-preservation during times of stress and trauma, they now work against our purpose and deep desires. We must win back those precious things, these (for lack of a better term) "soul parts" we hid in the deepest darkest parts of our unconscious, that they might not be put in jeopardy -- though, if we do not engage these bad habits, they remain disconnected from our aligned self and remain lost. Our impulses drive us away from our purpose, into hiding from Deep Self, towards that which is easy.
Yet, when we cultivate a keen and exacting attention to the self (which tends towards gentleness and compassion, as we need not be stern) we enter into the flow of our Deep Self, and our impulses tend die down. We become more centered, we can respond from a place of deeper connection. Our bodies tell us this. Our physical bodies are the prima materia -- they are not just the container for the energy bodies that make up the soul -- the body is the authentic self. The mind is just one of the energy bodies, and is mostly only good for solving puzzles.
We must move forward from merely asking "what do I want," and letting impulse decide. The Work urges us to sit still to find the answers. Deep desire is where want and need meet. When we step from this into action, into manifesting our desire, we can only do so if we have a commitment to our intention and a responsibility with how it moves through us. It is not enough to merely speak our desires or to talk about our intention. We must move with it and hold the responsibility for what our action does in the world. We do not exist in a vacuum, so intention alone can create havoc, with self and world always changing in its process. When we let loose our own inner authority and make our work come to pass, when we use our Will, it changes the world, those around us, and even the self.
So it seems, to manifest our desire we must move from a place of spontaneity; connected to that which surrounds us, centered in that which is within us. We must be able to adjust in the moment, as the universe is always in process, as a friend of mine says. We cannot just blunder along with our supposed intention. We must move with attention. In Tai Chi, one learns the movements of the martial art slowly at first, with keen attention, and then the movements can be "sped up" after precision is attained. This is like the manifestation of our Will. To me, this is magic.
Please, move with Love. |
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This is the Secret Garden's ritual highlights. Bless you all, and Bless our positive intentions.
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So many of you know what a source of conflict and misery that my job has been for me for the last 5 years, but yet I clung on to it. I always had an excuse why it was best for me to stay, but really those excuses were just a manifestion of my fear of the unknown. Well today I have let that fear go and I officially put in my 2 weeks notice. I have been through a lot of transformation (in my painful coyote way) in this last year, but I am very excited about the new and improved Puck that is emerging. I think I have finally grasped down to my core why Feri is called a warrior path, and I can now without guilt say that I am walking that path with my head held high. |
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Find it in you, raise your eyes
Look beyond the place you stand
Towards the furthest reaches
And to the smallest of things
The sound you are hearing
Is the symphony of what we are
Revelation will not come
With heart and mind closed and divided - VNV Nation, "Perpetual"
I had a good weekend in Denver attending INATS, giving soul readings at SpiritWise and a talk at Isis. What I noticed most in my encounters this weekend is that many of us are at a cusp right now. We can choose to step fully forward, in all our parts, into our finest, boldest, most beautiful lives. But mostly, we hold ourselves back. Why? Fear. Disconnection. The comfort of the known. But these times call upon us to step up and shine.
Monday, my plane landed at 8pm and friends whisked me directly to the VNV Nation concert, which was a very shamanic experience for me. Despite having wildly danced the night previous to an overtly shamanistic band, LunarFire, I did not have the shamanic experience there that VNV evokes within me. In podcast #6 of Elemental Castings, I spoke with Jason Pitzl-Waters about the magic of club dancing, and how I love to move energy there, and ride the waves of music. Just as Iamblichus wrote that each soul has its own path of holiness, I think also that each soul has its own music.
VNV uses lights that flash directly at the audience, which causes shifts in the brainwaves. Add in the power of Mark Jackson on drums and the pure heart and voice of Ronan Harris, coupled with lyrics that inspire, and I was transported. There were times when the ballroom completely fell away, and my soul was simply moving out on light and sound. All cultures use music to induce altered states. This is my music. This is my culture. And this concert was like the best rituals I have participated in. It moved in cascading waves.
One thing I love about VNV's magic is that I often associate transformative states of consciousness coming from a person on a stage with their personal charisma. Ronan is not charismatic. A bald, aerobically inclined, portly, middle-aged Irishman with a strange sense of humor (and he was Chatty Cathy this concert!), he seems like just another man until he sings. Then something moves through him. Something More. It is as if his heart cracks open and the spirit of the music moves straight from that large heart and out upon his voice, affecting the whole room. Meanwhile, Mark Jackson stands like a giant, back-lit messiah on his dais, pumping out the rhythm to which we all dance. They are Priests of Prometheus, enjoining us to take the fire of the Gods.
When I saw VNV two years ago, I suggested we form the Autonomous Idealist Vanguard. This concert left me wishing for us all to burn brightly, to shine, to become our best selves, to spread our wings and fly. And yeah, that is pretty idealistic, but it's just the way I roll.
I was too tired from the weekend to go meet the band at the after party, but am kind of glad for that. I wanted the music, their music, to carry me home. |
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Jul. 1st, 2009 @ 03:56 pm
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 www.smallbizshow.com |
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 my zucchinigasm made possible by Sarah and Julia |
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amused
