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Thin Veils Indeed November 11, 2008

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Last week probably was a poor choice for attempting to commune with death deities, though November ought to be the appropriate time for this.  In the witches’ calendar, this is the new year, and the beginning of winter.  It is the time to start going within, and in years past, the Lammas-Yule window has been my favorite time of year.  It still is, but last week’s events did manage to put a wrinkle in my brow.

And a large part of it was that I was communing with the dead as we pagans are apt to do around Samhain.  November 6 was the day that the Sun reached 15 degrees of Scorpio, which is the technical start of the Samhain season (until the Winter Solstice and Yule).  15 degrees of the fixed signs mark the celestial half-way points between solstices and equinoxes–a mathematical consideration really, academic.  In any case, the election just happened to coincide with this work, this time, this energy, this need, and I was not in any condition to respond to the events but merely to react, to go deeply into my fears.

And I really am grateful for that.  I got a taste of something that I don’t want, and what’s more, a lot of people are on my side.  It’s an interesting thing to witness other people coming forward to speak alongside me, even though I rather think the way our society approaches these significant partnerships to be insufficient and weighted toward the rich, the male, the caucasian.  Gay marriage to me, while it needs to be a part of the discussion if only because the institution confers certain benefits, isn’t really where I personally would like to put my focus.  I can actually respect different sectual [sic] preferences’ desires to confer their sanction over partnerships, even as I maintain my jersey-barrier spiritual boundaries around my own sacred authority and refuse to accept/allow their squawky invasions of my personal space and their abusive “for-your-own-good” unhealthy pride (read arrogance) that would brazenly attempt to control my sacred and sexual and affectional choices.

I don’t choose to be in their congregations for a reason, after all.  I wouldn’t mind being in the Church of Jesus Christ Bottom-and-Top.  And there are fellowships out there with that homoerotic Christ notion, but for the most part, I’m content working with the Gay Jesus as guardian of my Iron Pentacle.  I am, you are, we all are the Body of Christ.  We are all called upon to become Christs on our own, and to Mormons and Catholics of a certain authoritarian and fearful/forceful (read pathological) bent, this is heresy.  Gay people and witches make choices arising from our own sacred connections, not ones dictated to us by spiritual vampires.  Hence the word heretical being applied–we are choce makers and decision-makers–that’s all “heretic” ultimately means, chooser.  So MYOFB already, stay the f*ck out of my handfasting.  Don’t want you there, go to where it’s warm already.  It’ my job to make it Iceland for you khnts.

(Lovingly so, but still.  The cobalt blue jersey barrier IS meant to keep out the unsavory and the willfully blind, the batshit insane and any hostile reps of the vEmpire. Go and have sex to your hearts’ content–but over there where I can’t see it, thank you very much.)

In any case, I’m finished with the Feri death deities for now.  They told me we are finished, and that I need willow love, and that there are great plans afoot.  I drew the Fool card for the year, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE that!  This will be quite a fun and unpredictable year all right.

Could it be? September 19, 2008

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that neither candidate for the POTUS office really wants to win?  That maybe, they both are looking at this whole shebang and asking themselves “What the hell am I thinking?”  The thought crossed my mind yesterday that Obama’s professorial tone together with McCain’s primate behavior (Spain, a dictatorship in Latin America?  WTF???) make for a very sad spectacle.  It’s sort of like watching the original Tampa Bay Buccaneers (sorry, I don’t know what NFL team is “in the cellar” right now)shooting hoops against the perennial also-ran Chicago Cubs for the World Cup. 

Keystone Kops run and participate in an election, uff da!

Not that I am planning on voting or anything.  If I was registered, I might consider voting for C. McKinney, but I’m more inclined not to participate at all.

Btw, will have another blog post later.  Some interesting stuff is going on these days.  Fall Equinox is in the air, and I love this time of year.

Campaign Lying–A Strange Idea for SNL September 16, 2008

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I was reading online about media attention being paid to McCain’s lying, particularly the insane lie that “he invented the Blackberry!” T. Hee!  But I was thinking about this character that Kristen Wiig plays on SNL–I can’t remember the character’s name.  But she’s a chronic liar.  She can’t seem to help herself.  The first time I saw the character was when she was at a coop meeting, and she had to always usurp whoever it was that was speaking, and cause attention to be paid to her.

Molly Shannon was the guest host on this episode, and she was playing the facilitator of the meeting, and she and Kristen Wiig’s character were having a go around about giving birth first to cats, then to cows, then Kristen said “I gave birth to 4 cows!”

I’m laughing just thinking about it.  But I thought wouldn’t it be funny if she got up and started to do her thing at a McCain-Obama debate, and that it turned into a delusion fest between Johnny boy and this character?

I don’t know.  I was just thinking.  Could be pretty damn hilarious.

Many Weirdnesses September 15, 2008

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OK.  Today, I feel a mite … unsure where to put my focus.  One thing that is quite interesting to me is that I did a tarot reading for myself asking the question, “How do I look at this upcoming election?  How important is it to me in the scheme of things?”  And the Judgment card came up in the focus position itself–rather interesting all in all.  My present card was the Priestess and the past card was the card I drew last Samhain for my card of the year:  The 10 of Wands.  So I take it the time of feeling burdened has past, and right now is the time to ground and center and let Mama Tierra guide me. 

I do a variation on a 7-card reading my partner taught me, that puts an 8th card into the mix.  I refer to this 8th card as “the lens” by which I am looking at the focus.  I drew the 3 of disks for that, and I find that to be of some more than small interest to me.  It’s a card of productivity and craftsmanship.  I also drew the 4 of swords for the environment (rest and repose, an echo of the Priestess IMHO) and in that which is blocked to me, the Lovers.  Not a time to espouse choice, but to ascertain where I am right now and to defer any choices.  The future card was the 7 of wands and the end result was the Hierophant–not sure how to take that one, but the 7 of wands suggests I will feel beleaguered but in a good position for the good fight.  So all in all, I guess I do have to care a bit for this election.

It’s interesting to me to watch though, from the sidelines.  The SNL skit with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler (both of whom I just adore!) as Sarah and Hilary was quite delightful and it addressed sensitive people’s true fears about this election.  (The rest of the show was quite subpar though with the exception of about half of “Weekend Update.”  Alas.)  But I have really mixed feelings about this whole shebang as anyone who read my last post might discover.  I don’t know if we really have a lot of power to affect this election–it seems to me that someone/some thing has already made their/its decision and the rest of us will have to figure out where we stand in relation to that.  Whatever it is seems to rely on fear and force, and it’s up to individuals and communities and any semblance of the collective of humanity-embodied to call up their true power in this situation.  What that will look like is anyone’s guess, but I like to think of Paul Levy’s observation that we are all shamans in training and that as we change something in ourselves, that change ripples outward.

I was thinking that I might write a post about Burn After Reading which Jody and I saw this past weekend (and both of us loved it, and as I consider it it’s both more hilarious and more disturbing than all get-out), and also how some of the more interesting films out there have a bifurcated message about our times.  (The Dark Night and Wall-E are two films that spring easily to mind.)  But as I was starting to put this post together, I was feeling it sink in that this financial crisis unfolding with Lehman, Merrill, AIG, and it looks like WaMu, Goldman and Morgan Stanley (and one would hope Citigroup!) and I would also wonder about B-of-A as well, that it might be The Big One as far as the economic collapse I’ve been praying into being goes.

I’m just one person and there are others like me who are praying this.  There are also some militantly evil and hate-filled and self-despising individuals out there, some psychopaths indeed, who have placed open bets on the demise of 99.99% of humanity.  While I want the collapse to happen, I want also for as many people to survive as possible.  Not these folks, as the fellow at hermes3 has observed.  We do, as Sharon Astyk observed, have some “cartoon evil villains” out there. 

To be honest, I think that a lot of these individuals are like Zombi, that reckless and dangerous spirits have overtaken their bodies and are pulling their strings.  (I drew that card last night in an entirely unrelated reading with the New Orleans Voodoo deck.)  Doreen Virtue observed that there are people who are “walk-ins”–individuals who are of a certain disposition one day, who then have some radical shift in direction and intention.  Many of these people are here to assist humanity, but it stands to reason that some would be overtaken by destructive and violent sorts as well.  When I think of the Zombi from the deck, I think of this latter type.

Like most people, when the economy really tanks, I won’t know what to do first.  Other than to acknowledge my own powerlessness and ask for knowing the right action.  Again, that’s a High Priestess way to go about it, for I do desire to become the change I seek, and I also know that we walk in deity even as we walk in beauty. 

Simple things to remember in these troublesome times.

“Stupid” Americans & stoopid’merkans September 8, 2008

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I surf a lot of different websites, and I pretty much stay away from troglodytic ones.  But I have also been staying away from some of the popular “lefty” sites as well.  Over the last 8 years, since the 2000 election trauma we all sustained (and some of us not so well), I have been witness to wonderful people become totally taken up with fear, rage and anger.  As I am someone who is frequently susceptible to such reddish emotions, I have learned to avoid political topics with them, and to be quiet when they wish to indulge in these emotions so that I don’t add to them, looking for the earliest opportunity to exit “downstage center, even!”

But because I also surf pagan and gay websites, I can’t avoid coming across some of the reactions to troglodytic psychopathic TPTB vocal diarrheas and draconian laws/actions.  Lots of people say “we’re sliding into fascism,” and I’m sorry folks, but we’ve been there since way before I was born.  Now some people might say, “nuh-uh, because you can be gay and love your partner, and yah!” and I will admit that is something that is quite different from other fascist dictatorships.  But there are many places where I feel like I have to walk on eggshells, and think of mashed potatoes forming my aura so that others don’t notice me.  (And as an aside, mashed potatoes, being white, are sacred to Obatala, who is an orisha that seems to have me in his hands…)

Saying that I probably will not be voting in the next election will no doubt scandalize people, and I would like to direct anyone who questions this to Carolyn Baker’s article about why she won’t be voting in the 2008 election.  (It has a title like “Why I Won’t Be Voting in the 2008 Election” but I might be paraphrasing.)  If I were to vote, I’d “throw my vote away” on Cynthia McKinney, who I believe is at least telling some truth to power.  Any political candidate has to have quite a big ego, and sometimes that’s a problem, and other times it’s an asset.  C.McK is definitely her own person, and I think we need some kick-ass black female energy in this country.  But I’m not sure it’s worth the effort, to be honest, to register and then to actually go and vote. 

On some of the blogs I read, I’ve been noticing these reactions to the massaged polls out there, and what seems to be a rise in McInsane’s standing, now that he’s got a real psychopathic double Aquarius on his ticket.  (With Mars and Saturn nearby, I might add.  Quite a powerhouse of neurosis, with apologies to other Aquarians born in 1964.  I have a Saturn-Mars-Sun conjunction on the Aquarius/Pisces cusp myself, so I feel your pain, believe me I do.  I think S.H.P. is like me, only on the psychotic side that goes with identifying so much with a certain perception of the “light” that renders the person frighteningly dark inside her projections of her own darkness onto others.  She is someone who appears to be so sure of her position, she has lost sight of her own humanity.  My $.02 on that.)  What fails to be witnessed though, is something I read recently somewhere that really resonated with me.  In fact, I can’t help but bold it below.

We as Americans WANT to be lied to.

We want to believe that our actions don’t really matter all that much.  That because everyone else is doing it, then my little addition doesn’t matter.  (Well it does.)  That if I were to start to ride the bus or bike to work, that it wouldn’t matter.  (Well it would do quite a bit actually, because your life, while small in comparison to everything is the laboratory that changes all the worlds.)  That the whole world is a big, bad,c awful cesspool and it should just go away. (Well, I don’t happen to agree with that.)

Anyway, there are a lot of decent people out there, who are in thrall of various slave-masters.  Some of them are out-and-out addicts but others are addicts of a more subtle nature.  Addicted to work, to judgment, to pop culture, to shopping/debt, to reality t.v., to finger-pointing, to their rage/anger/hate of fill-in-the-blank.  And they’re “stupid” in the sense that one can not talk to these people while they are in their thing.  In between their binges, there is an opportunity to plant a seed, and yes, miraculous awakenings do occur.  They give me hope.  I heard about an awakening this weekend, of someone who has held a corporate job and tried to get others to drink the kool-aid, sober up from that particular brand of what-she-don’t-need and say “how do I f-in’ get out of this?”  That is one of the best things I’ve heard, and I want to hear more of it.

These “stupid” Americans are not the same as the stoopid’merkans I noted above.  These are … well, are they “people”?  It’s difficult to tell, and I don’t say that out of disrespect.  In cyberspace, where you can’t really hear the inflection of my language, it might be hard to believe that I mean that, but I wonder whether the stoopid’merkans I identify as such wouldn’t agree with me.  They have a self- and other-hatred so deep, so intractable and thorough and recalcitrant and venomous as to have them wish they weren’t human at all.  We all know/have known people so far gone into their addictions that it really would take divine intervention to save them.  And if that’s meant to be for the 350-pound, Krispy-Kreme-3-baker’s-dozen-a-day-ingestin’, Rush-Limbaugh-listenin’, fingerpointing, vehement haters male and female, sittin’ on their trailer-trash couches in their delusional debt-financed “luxurious squalor” as well as the polished and poised haters with $500 haircuts and McMansions, whatever you call it, then it will be.  As the Hopi have said, those who cling to the shore during these wild times will probably be swept away and those who go with the flow–well, we don’t really know do we? 

Anyway, I am here for others as they wake up.  At least I want to be, and I do see that as part of my work.  It’s part of my magic.  It’s part of my connection to my house on 4th Street, to Little Italy in Troy, to Troy itself, to the Hudson-Mohawk region, to the Northeastern quadrant of the North American continent, and to the whole of the American continents and to the whole of Gaia and the multiverse surrounding us all.  Yea, yes, ja, oui, si, etc.

UPDATED:  Right after I posted this, I found this on Ran Prieur’s website  (www.ranprieur.com, fyi).  Just sayin…. There are others out there connecting the dots…  And thank you Mr. Prieur for these observations.

It looks like not vetting Sarah Palin was a good move, because if they had, someone would have said, “Oh shit, look at all the scandals, we can’t risk running with her.” But the risk has paid off… so far. Republicans, playing the dominant role in the American abuse ritual, remain scandal-proof, and McCain has caught Obama in the polls. We’ll see what happens in the next eight weeks as the swing voters get to know everyone better. If McCain can stay within five points, he wins with the voter purges.

***
It’s hard to explain what the civil war is about. Paul Krugman tries in The Resentment Strategy, and Bill Maher in Stop Calling Obama Elitist. I would say Republicans are pretending to fire up the poor against the rich, when really they’re firing up the aggressively ignorant against the open-minded and tolerant, the contractive against the expansive, the orcs against the elves.

The good news is, the orcs are still mostly working within the system, merely voting against people less fucked up than they are, instead of killing them, as they did in Nazi Germany and Cambodia. And the other good news is the rumor that last week’s stock market tumble is tied to Palin. If true, it means the Republicans have crossed the line with their reckless anti-elitism, and frightened the actual elite, who have the power to tell the TV news people to stop coddling McCain.

Addiction keeps us from really being present to our reality.  It’s a family illness, however.  As I have said before, we all, as people raised within totalitarian agriculture, but especially we Americans whether stoopid or stupid or awake, are all de facto qualifiers for Al-Anon.  We live in an abusive system, with its ritual codes that are not-so-easily broken.  They only become so when we become desperate enough or the pain we feel is great enough for us to scream “Help me, Goddess!”  And then something miraculous can happen, though it’s up to powers greater than we are to determine if we will get the reprieve; then it’s up to us to try to work it through on a daily basis.  At least that’s my experience as a sugar/flour/alcohol/codependency/scarcity addict myself.

Devotion and love and sex to you all!

Frostwolf