wtf pills

I totally have a rash. This means I must stop taking my seizure med, Dilantin, at once. And go to the doctor tomorrow. You know, a few hours before we leave for Las Vegas for the BHOF.

AWESOME.

Honestly, I'm sort of happy - Dilantin sucks balls. I spent an hour bawling today because I couldn't pick something to make for dinner. That's so not normal for me. It makes me hella drowsy and dizzy, and it's just... yeah. Not a fan.

So we'll see what the doctor says tomorrow morning. In the meantime, no more pills.

The Girls.

Today after rehearsal we went to the mall.

Voodoo and I love the mall. I tell people this sometimes and they look at me with such confusion that you'd think I just told them I was born with a conjoined twin that still itches my ass for me. But here's the thing - we grew up in the Bible Belt suburbs. We lived in a town where if you weren't part of a youth group, there wasn't a whole hell of a lot to do as a teenager. So, even as gother-than-thou little misfits, we wound up hanging out at the mall a lot.

Also: we like shopping.

So. The main goal for today was to get my hair trimmed by our cousin Michelle, who works in the mall. Secondary goals included getting some decent flats and false eyelashes because we leave for the Burlesque Hall of Fame on Wednesday. And, you know, since we were there ANYWAY... may as well have the whole mall experience. This includes the food court.

But I'm not here to tell you about my addiction to fried chicken. As I said, we were looking for shoes. In the mall, there's this shop that we refer to as "the hooker shoe store" because it sells ridiculous stripper-esque shoes. This is where you can go if you need a pair of five-inch stilettos where the heel is made out of fake bullets. It's glorious. Anyway, while my sister looked in vain for anything in a size five, I perused the silver shoes because I need a pair just in case for Vegas. (I'm an alternate in the group number.) One of the girls who worked there asked if I needed help, and then interrupted herself as she stared at my chest.

"I'm sorry - are those REAL?"

I told her, yes. And when she asked I told her my cup size. (Which is an I in European sizing.) She promptly called over the other girl working there to ogle my tits. Which sounds really bad, but she was awfully sweet about it. She then went on about her own desire to have a boob job, and was horrified to find I have considered reduction surgery. I told her just to get fat if she wanted bigger ones.

Later, buying insanely colourful underwear, another salesgirl asked about my chest size. (This made more sense since we were in LaSenza, at least.) She too was torn between envy and horror.

I don't take particular pride on my breasts. They're just THERE, getting in the way more often than not. I don't dislike them (usually) but when this sort of thing happens I can't help but be amused.

Happily, I manage to fit my big ol' boobs into a stunning dress after that. I'm wearing the hell out of this on Thursday night when Voodoo preforms I think. Yay!

K is for Kitchen WTF

Another entry in the Pagan Blog Project

The Kitchen Witch. I feel like somewhere along the way this iconic image went from being a real thing to being some twit with a box of Betty Crocker muffin mix and a wand. Sort of like how I'm sure once upon a time Etsy actually had awesome hand-made crafty shit but is now a shitshow of remarkable WTFery.

Now, I'm certain there really are kitchen witches out there - people who are intimately familiar with the gardens they grow outside their homes or in window boxes, and who if you went to their house could whip you up a potion in three minutes flat that would cure your cold and restore your sexual potency. People who are basically Sandra Bullock in Practical Magic. (And fuck you, I think we all wish we were Sandra Bullock sometimes.) These people are living their quiet lives all across the world, doing magic mundanely and maybe posting arty photos of their peach cobbler on Tumblr.

And then there's the microwave set.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm not about to mock people for being shitty cooks. I didn't cook for YEARS. I had to ask my sister how to make mashed potatoes. (Which I intended to eat a pot of. With nothing else. Yeah, I was like twenty-two, I was a pig.) I fucked up instant coffee. It was sad and pathetic, and I think the most we ever used the minuscule kitchen in our first Vancouver apartment was the time we ran out of laundry tokens and so hung all our underwear in it to dry.

So I'm not going to point and laugh if you burn water.

It's a brew!

I will point and laugh if you burn water and then call it a spell, though.

Look. We look silly enough, you guys. To normal people, magic itself is out there enough that you look like a bit of a ninny on a good day, what with your candles and arm gestures and all. But to then claim you're stirring love and good health into a pot of spaghetti-os... Yeah. No.

Kitchen witchery is not JUST intent. Yes, intent is very important in magic, but it's not the only thing. If it were, I'd be rich and surrounded by sex bitches right now, who would be gently filing the calluses off my feet. Kitchen witchery is all about well, shit you do in the kitchen, right? Cooking, making home remedies, that sort of oldschool wholesome thing. If someone tells me they're making gingerbread cookies with menstrual blood in them to bewitch a lover, alright, that seems like kitchen witchery. If someone is just thinking really hard at a box of oreos... not so much.

These examples I hope illustrate the disconnect that seems to go on with a certain type of people. It's almost like they're not Brit Trad Wiccans, they're not Recons, and they find Chaos Magic too anarchic. They're basically eclectic Wiccan-esque in terms of belief, but it's too much effort to bother much with the witchcraft side of things. So they look around for something that sounds legitimate and that they can easily say "well, sure, I do this daily" about. And we all need to eat, which means we all need to cook.

So. You're on your pagan message board or whatever, and someone asks "what the fuck are you?" and a whole bunch of people go, "kitchen witch!" And the explanation is that they think stuff while they cook.

I dunno, ya'll. I'm all for simple spellwork, but that just seems fucking lazy.

Grandma would not approve.
image from www.theblackcatcloset.com

trepanning?

So. I had a seizure on Thursday morning. This would be more exciting news if it were my first, but it's my fourth so as sick as it sounds I'm kinda old hat at them by now. I bit my tongue up, but not as bad as the first time - it's still a bit numb and weird feeling at the tip today, but the side seems mostly okay.

The doctor put me on Dilantin. I'm not sure I'm thrilled about it - it's played merry hell with my balance, which means I actually left rehearsal on Sunday in tears. Oh, yeah. It also seems to be playing merry hell with my emotional state as well. So that's fun. I need to make an appointment with my regular neurologist and see if I can't maybe switch to the meds I was on in Dublin instead.  Being seizure free is nice, but I'd also like to be relatively sane and not prone to bursting into tears over old Degrassi episodes.


Hey! You know what?! It's almost summer! That means it's time to start thinking about Halloween! No, seriously. Here, have a post to put you in the mood prematurely.

J is for Journaling

For the Pagan Bog Project.

"The Record is both chart and log to the bold Sea-Captains of The Voyage Marvellous." - Aleister Crowley

If there's one thing I would say you need to do in order to practice magic, regardless of whether it's high or low, that thing would be this: you need to keep a magical diary.


Why keep a journal logging your magical practice? What's the difference between that and a Book of Shadows or a grimoire? What format works best for your diary, and what exactly should you be recording? 


Fuck, you ask a lot of questions.


A magical journal is an important tool for the would-be magician, as it is the best way with which to keep track of your workings. It's the easiest way there is to monitor successes and failures, and if you are diligent in recording all that you do it makes analysing the failures much easier. If you preform a ritual and the intended goal is not reached, you can look back through your diary and see if you can substitute one element for another, then try again and record those results. 


You can gauge your improvements easier when they're written in black and white, and over time a magical journal will reveal your 'high points' - times when your energy soars and your work comes easier.  This is good to know, since then for important workings you can better time them to coincide with these periods.


A magical diary is not, in my opinion, quite the same as a Book of Shadows or grimoire - the latter two are more like instruction manuals than anything else, while a diary is a personal collection of notes. Your diary can certainly provide material for your B.O.S. in the form of spells that have been successful. Those you can copy into a notebook or add to a scrapbook or however you want to do it.


Speaking of formats... Although I am a fan of online journals (obviously) I do feel that just plain old pen and paper works best for magic diary keeping. For me personally, even if a journal entry is set to 'private' on a blog, I find that I still write as though someone else is going to read it. I can be more honest and raw in a physical book. 


As an added advantage, a notebook can go almost anywhere... even a graveyard at midnight in the middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere. My laptop's not that durable, and my phone sucks balls. If I'm staked out somewhere weird, a pen and a flashlight will work better for my needs.


Now, as for what you should record? The answer to that is simple: everything. No, really. Everything you can think of, anyway. And if you can't think of anything, well, you're shit out of luck.


Except not, since here's a list to get you started. You're welcome.


Time
Date
Moon Phase
Planetary Phases (if you know them)
Place
Ingredients
Tools
Emotional state before, during and after the working
Any occurring phenomena


Once you're done your spell, you should also be careful to record any potential results. This could be months later, so you can see why settling into the habit of keeping your journal regularly is important. Record good results and shitty ones, or the fact that there were none at all.


Keeping a magical journal helps prevent you from making the same mistakes over and over. It also gives you a rich personal history of your practice. Whether you're working in a group tradition or entirely on your own, it's exhilarating to look back on your early rituals and see exactly how far you've come. Hindsight also reveals many synchronicities and unusual events that at the time were overlooked because you were too busy trying to keep your head above the water. 

In short, a magical journal is truly one of the most important tools to keep in your arsenal.

Linky links.

Couple of things to kick off your Monday.

How time stands still in women's magazines. I was never a big magazine girl myself - I bought a few issues of YM and Seventeen when I was fourteen, but quickly decided to boycott them. My rule was "if someone else has one, I'll read it, but I won't give them my money." That way I could enjoy the 'Say Anything!' stories in the back, enjoy the fashions (or mock them) and still be snotty about not buying into the whole anti-female thing. This is a rule I still abide by today. I don't buy the glossies, for many of the reasons the article there touches on, but I'll flip through em when I get my hair done.

The Atrum Traba. Completely unrelated! But a damn good post. If you're mucking about with spirits, you ought to know how to do this stuff. While we're on the topic, if you haven't read Lon Milo DuQuette's Low Magic and My Life With the Spirits yet, you should. The former has a wonderful example of the exact technique the Bad Witch is talking about, and by wonderful I also mean hilarious.

Also! A roundup by Blue Morris of the media coverage of the VIBF!

J is for Jewellery

Another entry for the Pagan Blog Project.


Pagans like jewellery.

This much is apparent at any sort of pagan festival, or any metaphysical-oriented store. Rings, bracelets and pendants - oh the pendants! Gemstones, pentagrams, ankhs, triskelions, goddesses, fairies... as a group, we're mad for hanging shit around our necks.

Back in the days when my entire wardrobe was black, I wore approximately five pounds of jewellery at a time. Almost every finger had a ring on it, and I'd be clanking about with several necklaces at a time. I had one very small pentagram that I bought at Spencer's Gifts for ten bucks, which was accidentally tasteful of me considering I could have got one the size of a small hubcap. Less so was the inverted crucifix with a wolf's head on it, that I swear I bought at Claire's or one of those other chain teenager-aimed jewellery stores. I think the pentagram is still kicking around, but alas, not the ugly wtf wolf cross.

These days, I don't wear as many necklaces. (For one thing, if they're too long they get trapped in my cleavage, and since I'm short most chains are indeed too long.) I also don't tend to wear much overtly 'pagan'  jewellery anymore. I still have a lovely pendant that is a crescent moon encircling a pentagram that my mother and sister gave to me years ago, but I couldn't tell you the last time I actually wore it. I have another pentagram that I bought mostly because perched on top of it is a crow - the piece is lovey, but again, I don't wear it often. I almost think I'd prefer it as a pin instead of a necklace.

I own two other pieces of crow jewellery. I have a miniature skull that is one half of a pair - I gave the other to my sister. I also own a a glass pendant that is about two inches long and very thin that has a crow painted or something on it in black. These are pieces I consider to be magical to me now, because they remind me of unbreakable bonds and the things I truly love.

I still own a lot of rings. I don't wear as many at one time, but I do love them. Here I feel I can indulge my desire for talismanic objects a bit more easily, as there's gems galore available in ring form that won't clash with my outfit. Currently, I have four rings that I cycle through for magical purposes: moonstone, blue onyx, obsidian, and a blue tiger's eye. I find rings work better for me magically as well because they're on my hands, which are not only more visible (I don't actually look down at my tits very often) but also what I generally use to direct energy (which I certainly don't use my tits for).

My jewellery doesn't identify me as pagan right away, and honestly I don't see any reason to change that. For one thing, anyone who is even moderately perceptive can probably figure out my spitirual slant by looking at the giant freaking arm tattoo I have of two witches making rain. For another thing... I just don't think it's my style anymore. Unless I find a replica of Margaret Krusemark's necklace in Angel Heart. I'd wear the shit out of that thing.

So. Religious symbols, magical tools, or just pretty shiny things - or hell, all three! -is it any wonder witchy people love their jewellery?

Today I decided to check out the 'fitness centre' at the pool near my house. I had been warned by a friend that it was small, and that I would have to fight elderly Chinese women for the elliptical machine. Neither of these warnings were exaggerated.

Yup, just a morning spent with me and the over-sixty crowd! And holy shit do those women have staying power - they get on a machine and fuck you, they are getting in their maximum half hour! A woman older than my mom officially could out-treadmill me. Anyway, I finally managed to snag the stationary bike, which for some reason was outfitted with the most uncomfortable seat in the universe. I'm talking the banana-seat-bike you had when you were eleven and you fell on it once and made your crotch bleed. THAT seat.

What I'm trying to say is my nether regions hurt now. Not my actual crotch, but like... if you cross your legs and stick your hand between your legs and feel like, right where your butt starts? There! Ugh, the pain.


Tonight Voodoo and I watched 'Ghost Adventures' which we thought was a parody show but is not. There was a Salem episode, so we took bets on how long it would take for Christian Day to appear onscreen. We were both wrong - he didn't show up until a whole sixteen minutes into the episode, wearing what looked like a pillowcase.

Not flattering. Just sayin'.

Monday shopping.

Today I did not have to go into the studio (I am on an on-call basis this week) and so, since the weather was good, decided to venture to Kitsilano. I needed to go to Lush to buy my face soap (I use Angels on Bare Skin) and I wanted to stop at David's Tea for more Secret Weapon.

Since I'd already taken the bus across town, I figured I may as well take the loser cruiser a few more stops and visit Banyen. See if anything new and interesting had come out. Also I needed a new notebook.

Well, I found a notebook no problem. Looked at some of the new titles - 'Spells for Tough Times' by Kerri Connor looked interesting, and I sort of poked at DuQuette's Masonry book and some sigil stuff by Frater U.D. The thing about sigils is that once you know how to do them there's no real point in reading another book on them, is there? I mean... like candle magic, it's pretty goddamn simple.

DisInfo's 'Pop! Goes the Witch' was marked down to ten bucks. Still not worth it.

I wound up just buying the journal, some beeswax candles, and a nice round soapstone incense holder since I'd just bitched about my dollar-store one. New one was a whole four bucks, and it looks much nicer.

While browsing, it occurred to me that what I really wanted was a copy of 'Wild Mind' by Natalie Goldberg. I'd started reading my father's copy the night before my grandmother's funeral. But I didn't want to pay full price for it, since it didn't seem vastly different from her other books on writing.

So. I walked down the block to Kestrel Books where I found not one but two used copies. I also found a copy of "Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation" and "Drawing Down the Spirits" by Kenaz Filan and Raven Kaldera. The latter I already own, but I can donate the used copy to my mom's store since the distributor doesn't seem to stock Filan's stuff. 



I like to check up on pagan/magic books. I suppose I do it for the same reason everyone else does - to see if something new exists to inject a little novelty or inspiration into my own practice. But very often what I wind up walking away from my shopping trips is not a new book at all, but rather a reminder that I need to inspire myself and just sit down and do the damn work.

SUPERMOON!

Hope everyone enjoyed the supermoon!

That night also happened to be the unofficial Vancouver International Burlesque Festival after-party. In celebration, Voodoo and I tried a new cocktail...

The Ward Eight.

I'd never bought bourbon before. We wound up picking Bulleit, mostly because the bottle is really nifty. Once at the party Blue Morris, visiting burlesque star Persephone and her gentleman friend expressed their approval so I guess we picked a good one. Sometimes being shallow pays off!

Blue also tried to buy our amazing travel bar off of us. Can't say I blame him. That thing is PIMP.

See the pimpness? Voodoo bought it for fifty bucks. Her boobs are sort of blocking it in this shot, but it came with plastic shot and highball glasses as well as cocktail shaker accessories. The shaker it did not come with, but we already owned one so we were well set.

"I AM Don Draper!" my sibling declared after purchase.

She is. ("HWOOOOOOOOOGHHH... what?")

I is for Incense

This rather pointless and tired post is brought to you by the Pagan Blog Project!

Today I went to our local grocery store and went down the 'assorted cleaning products' aisle, which is also where they store tampons and soaps and things. (Because you really want a bottle of Draino that screams 'UNCLOGS!' next to the tampax...)

I noticed as I was picking up some of said Draino in my ongoing battle to fight the hair in the sink that next to the hippy all-natural soaps and solid perfumes, they were now stocking incense. Nice incense, no less - I sniffed just about every one and they were all light and clear smelling. Looked handrolled too. They were priced at fifteen scents a stick, and so I bought several: rose, lavender, amber, 'rain', 'Indian spice' and 'Ganesh.'

When I was younger, I was a dollar-store-incense gal. For one thing, that was practically all that was available, and for another I was broke. I also used to get dollar store oils. Both of these were pretty rank, as you can probably imagine, with no real essential oils ever coming remotely near them.

Over the years I branched out, mostly thanks to being able to shop at metaphysical stores. (Although some of those swanky home decor stores stock nice oils nowadays.) I've discovered that yes, the more expensive shit tends to burn slower, more cleanly, and won't make your house reek like apricot bodyspray for days on end. I've also discovered the joys and annoyances of charcoal tabs and making your own incense blends from dried herbs and resins.

A word on those tabs... mine always seem to gutter out. I've tried different brands, with the same result 80% of the time. The other thing that I've never quite gotten the hang of is amount. How much incense should you be putting on that little glowing coal? If you need to replace it, why do the censers have metal lids that get fucking hot to the touch? Is there a ritual oven mitt I'm not aware of?  I've been doing this for years now and still I manage to overload the dry herbs and accidentally knock the resins off so they just turn to goo in the corner of the burner.

Why bother going to all this trouble? Besides the fact that incense matches are wonderful for covering noxious ass fumes in the bathroom, incense works in ritual on a few different levels.

Incense is associated with the element of air, for one thing. (Or air and fire.) So you can get some of your elemental groove going on right then and there. Secondly, the sense of smell has a way of bypassing the conscious mind and jump-starting memory and feeling. Third, incense is a traditional offering to spirits, the dead, and deities. It's one of those magical tools that anyone without an allergy can and generally does use.

But you probably knew all that.

I keep a large jar of stick incense in my magical supply cabinet, as well as lots of dried herbs and resins. I have a censer that's got to be something like seven years old now, and a stand to rest it on. I have a set of oversized tweezers to hold the charcoal tabs with while I light them. The one thing I don't have? A cool stick holder.

Materialistic, right? Yes. You're talking to a woman who has a shoe closet. The one I have works just fine - it's a basic wood holder, stained green. The kind you can buy at any dollar store. ...which is probably where I got it, actually. I used to have a glass one with a pentacle on it - a leftover from my 'dude I'm so witchy' days - but it broke in some move or another. I think the issue with the stick holders is that they tend to be really, really ugly if they're not plain. They're either stoner trees, fairies in goth leggings, or heavy metal style skeletons and dragons. Maybe skeleton dragons.

Well, whatever floats your boat I guess. So long as you can hide the smell of marijuana, am I right dudes?!

...and on that note google image searching 'glass incense burners' brings up pictures of bongs.

...H is also for Home, btw.

Consider this an unofficial PBP entry - one I meant to do, but didn't have the time to. See, the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival is upon us, hot on the heels of the last Taboo Revue of the season, and although yours truly isn't performing there's still plenty to do.

Anyway. What I had been planning to talk about was the simple magic of your home. But since this is unofficial, I can ramble more and be less overtly witchy.

For as long as I can remember, my apartments have tended to become the social gathering spot for my friends. The fact that some of my apartments have been real holes hasn't changed this fact in the slightest - I'm not sure if it's because I let people sleep on the floor, or because everyone always tells my sister and I how 'homey' our places are.

I'm a Libra, which is my handy excuse for my obsession with making even the shitholes look as nice as my budget allows.I'm also a goddamn witch, which explains my obsession with making it 'feel' like home.

Currently I reside in a basement suite. It has low ceilings, but my sister and I are short so we never notice. The building's quite new, and my long-time friends have unanimously decreed it the nicest apartment I've had in Vancouver.

I've also got a real honest-to-goodness grown-up job now, as does Voodoo. This means we can afford to outfit our home with whatever we like. (Not to slam the Jizz Couch - a sofa we found in the lobby of one of our apartment buildings when we were in our very early twenties. It was named for the fact that we had no way of telling who had fucked on it.)

Recently we've been looking to upgrade the ancient crappy bookshelves in our living room to something a bit more stylish. And last week my sister found a beautiful and - more shocking for Vancouver - affordable credenza.

Oh yeeeeeah.

The living room, as you can probably tell, is where we strive for our very best retro-lounge vibe. This is where we entertain guests so to me it makes sense to have decor that's fun and conducive to parties.

My bedroom's totally different. When I first moved in, I was thrilled to finally have a bedroom at all - in our last place I slept in a large closet. After some thought I decided that since my bedroom would become the space in which I did the vats majority of my magical an ritual work, I would model the atmosphere on something appropriate...

...the Aunts' house in Practical Magic.

So. Lots of wood. Botanical prints. Something comforting and clean.

Dresser set up pre-Beltane ritual.

 Having a nice home is very important to me. I try to have fresh flowers as often as possible, and if I don't do a good clean every week I find all the clutter does affect my mood.

Not everyone is like this, I'm sure - hell, I watch Hoarders! - but I am and so it seems smarter to just run with it. I suppose it all relates back a bit to the idea of creating mood in magic - you pick certain colours, scents, symbols in order to put your being in line with a particular purpose. The home is no different in my opinion. In fact, I'd say it's even more important than just throwing a purple altar cloth on since rituals are usually done for a short period of time but your home is where you spend a great deal of your life.

Do you take pains to have your living space reflect a certain mood? Have you noticed how your decor shifts over time? (Mine sure has... there was a point that involved lots of black paint and those bigass Celtic knotwork wall hangings....)