The Longest Night

Today marks the both the winter solstice and the new moon. The solstice happened at 3 in the afternoon, meaning that I spent it with my mother and sister. This is fitting, as the first real witch holiday we spent together as a family was a winter solstice many years ago - my sister had just moved home after breaking up with a real douchenozzle. So it's always a bit of a special family holiday for me.

After my mom left, I brewed myself some mushroom tea - I mixed it with the African Mint I bought from David's Tea, which has both mint and ginger to negate any nausea brought on by the mushrooms. I banished and cleansed the house, then drank the tea while reading Women of the Golden Dawn.

It took some time for me to actually notice the effects - I was convinced the dose was too low right up until I realised I'd been mesmerised by the ceiling for an unknown amount of time. I didn't have anything specifically planned for the duration of the trip, but I certainly had expectations for the energy of it - I was thinking of sacrifice and wisdom, shades of the dead and glimpses of the future, maybe a visit from the old One-Eyed Bastard. Nope. Instead it was a very sensual, primal energy - I felt like Rosaleen Norton. Not what I'd planned for, as I tend to me more cerebral, but it was a fascinating experience. As is usual with this sort of thing, the physical events themselves read as utterly dull, but the things that cannot be conveyed well made it worthwhile.

After a while I found myself talking to the cat too much, and apparently I got both cold and jealous of her fur since I wound up going to the closet for my fur coat. I got a bit nauseous then and so I curled up and waited it out with deep breathing. Some time after that I got out my Vertigo deck and did a Journey of the Fool spread, which was a bit more intense than I'd anticipated. Apparently my new year's theme card is The Star. This is a card I've always had a hard time with, so I plan to meditate on it for the rest of the month.

I had my sister come over once her boyfriend was gone to his gig, and she brought her Froud oracle - the very one I'd bought her for that first Yule all those years ago. She gave me some more insight into my reading, and then we just sat around and watched a lot of Degrassi Jr. High while I ate pizza.

I closed up the evening with a bath and another banishing, and a cup of ginger tea. All in all, not a bad way to spend the longest night of the year.

"I should warn you, there's a severed hand on the wall."

So, last week my work had a mandatory meeting at eight o clock in the fucking morning, outside of the office. One of my work friends lives considerably far out from the city, and so she asked if she could stay at my place. I said yes, because I quite like her and because I had access to an air mattress. Only after agreeing did I then have the moment of, "...aw, shit, she's going to see inside the house. SHE'LL KNOW."

The guy who sits next to me at work seems to think I'm a Satanist, but I think that's probably because of my Baphomet tights and the fact that he's maybe not the brightest man alive - I overheard him say that the pyramids aren't that impressive because they are just "shit stacked on top of other shit."

Duh, dude.

Most people are aware that wearing all black all the time just means you have terrible taste in music, and I like to think that I present a relatively normal face to the world. This facade crumbles once you get inside my apartment, because my apartment is very small and so even if I were inclined to hide my shit, there is literally nowhere to do so. Normally I don't care, because the only people crossing that threshold are people who are weirdos themselves. Oh, and Arnt, but he dates my sister so he's used to this bullshit already anyway.

But normals, you guys. The burlesque community has quite a few pagans and witches in it, and I've actually come to expect the nerd community to be either left of centre on spirituality or total atheists. I live in Vancouver, for fuck's sake - there's a lot of hippies here. So I sort of forgot that no, not everyone is down with the eye of newt.

I've had a few conversations with a friend lately that had me sitting there going, "you DO know what I am, right?" and then coming to realise that it was possible she hadn't pieced it together yet. There's also ample evidence that alternate spiritualities are NOT a thing she's researched, which of course baffles me but is possibly quite normal? I don't fucking know anymore. I assumed everyone close to my age had a high school coven, or went off to college and started telling everyone god was dead.

Anyway, as a result of these conversations, I was a bit nervous once I realised the woman staying with me was married to a Mennonite. Not because that's fucked up or anything, but because I honestly was concerned she'd be creeped out by my dumb house. Which was silly. Just because my one normie friend was scared of witches didn't mean ALL of them were. ...Right?

Pictured: Subtle clues.

Actually, yes, right. Here's the anti-climactic ending: she loved the decor, including the Hand of Glory on the wall, we stayed up chatting slumber party style, and like all polite adults she didn't say shit about the bookcase. Seriously, I can wind myself up over the dumbest things.

The moral of the story is this: nobody cares, and that's exactly as it should be.

Also: if your cat is a goblin, it will shove its gross goblin face into your guest's at some ungodly hour of the morning.

Tarot for Tips

Friday night I was lucky enough to be invited to read cards for donations at the Neil E Dee Danger Thrill Show at Lana Lou's. The venue is actually really nice, and has the bonus of having booths in the back so that I could give readings in a fairly private environment.

The crowd was super fun, friendly, and generous. Not gonna lie, I was expecting to make enough to maybe pay for my drinks, but I walked away with enough to finance a little shopping spree and also two free glasses of wine. The evening was almost totally enjoyable.

Almost because of this one fucking guy.

So, a surprising number of people got their readings done with another person present - friends, partners, whatever. This one lovely goth chick came in with her handsome fella and I did as I do and asked her which deck she would like: the Rider or the Thoth?

Her fella, I realised, was quite drunk. He reached over and tapped the Thoth deck. "That one. That's the real one."

She seemed happy with the choice so I figured, fuck it, not going to ask what the fuck that's supposed to mean. I did ask him if he were a magician, thinking maybe this was some sort of metaphysical dick-swinging contest because he was an OTO freak or some shit, but he said nope, he wasn't.

All night long, I'd been doing Celtic Cross spreads with additional cards thrown if the client had additional questions. This is because when reading for strangers, I tend to read pretty fast - 90% of them do not give two shits about what the symbolism in the cards means, they want to know if they're gonna get laid or make it rich. So I laid out the cards and I realised the dude was frowning heavily as I turned them over.

"I don't do reversals," I told them. Which is true - I don't. The fella voiced his opinion that he believes cards fall rightside up or not for a reason, and I smiled and said that that is totally valid, but it's not my method. I've used reversals before in my fifteen-plus years reading, and to be frank I find they don't really offer a lot to a reading provided you're using a decent spread. His girlfriend sort of brushed him off and he subsided... but then proceeded to roll his eyes and make noises for the duration of the reading.

I've read for a lot of people. I've read for genuine nutcases, people who don't believe in divination (this actually happens more than you'd think), and the cataclysmically wasted. But I honestly don't remember ever having someone so aggressive sitting at my table before... and it wasn't even his reading! Throughout the entire encounter I tried to only focus on the woman, and stay as friendly and open as I always do. But holy bejeebus was it hard. One of the cards he was pissed I had flipped around I actually turned upside down for his benefit and said, "okay, so if we read this reversed it means this..." which considering the position, was basically what I had fucking said in the first place anyway. I figured if I played nice maybe he would back off and let his lady enjoy herself, but no.

When the reading was over, the woman went into her purse. Her fella looked exasperated, but thankfully got the fuck out of the booth so I could lean over and tell her NOT to give me money because I was thrown off and consequently felt that I had done a shitty job. She told me no, she was going to pay me if only for my patience. I actually have a feeling she overtipped me because she was embarrassed. At the time I would rather have had her keep her money, but whatever, it means today I got to buy a sweater so I guess it all worked out in the end. Dude probably didn't get laid that night either, since she seemed pretty pissed.

I'd been slammin busy all night, but I got lucky and had a few minutes to chill out and get back in the right headspace by drinking a little more wine and focusing on the High Priestess card for a bit.

I got home around one thirty in the morning. I probably could have stayed later and made some more money, but I was frankly exhausted by that point. Saturday I kind of slugged around too , still feeling drained. I slept in today which helped, and tonight when I go to the gym I think I'm going to make a point of visualising sweating out the icky vibes, then come home and do a proper cleanse. (Catching up on my blog reading I see Deb has a timely post regarding that.)

Overall though, I would totally do the event again. I just might ask dicks to wait outside next time.

Maps

NYNY Prompt: Maps.

This week’s prompt is for you to go some place that is sacred to you and to use the experience to guide you in your work. Look for signs and omens everywhere...

My first apartment in Vancouver was next to the beach. The apartment itself was small and very narrow, with windows that let in the afternoon sun and roasted us alive in the summer. The bathroom sink once fell off the wall and wasn't fixed for a full week, and there was a crazy woman obsessed with traffic cones who would scream at anyone who idled their car in the turnaround in front of the building. It was the sort of shithole that's perfect for your first place in the big city in your 20s. And again: it was by the beach. I could walk to the ocean at night and let the waves break over my toes. I could stand at the edge of midnight in the dead of winter anytime I felt like it.

The sea has a way of claiming you, once you've heard the waves.

 

The moon is waxing now - the night of the Scorpio new moon I did work to release some leftover bullshit in my head. After you've hollowed yourself out is a good time to visit the shoreline, I've found - you can feel the vastness of the ocean better. It's so much bigger than you, and it can swallow you whole and forget your bones.

You will drown. At some point, we all do. Not literally, but there will always be a time when you are swept away, pulled down, lost. And it doesn't matter. Not really.

It's been stormy this past week, with today being the first truly clear day in a while. The winds, however, stay strong - the remnants of Hurricane Ana. Consequently as I walked beneath a sliver of early evening moon, the waves were hurling themselves against the sand with real violence.

They will take everything away if you let them.

Dot dot dot.

Did some catching up with myself today, when I wasn't sleeping through the flu. I realised I'd all but abandoned the New Year, New You prompts. I went back through them and checked the original prompts on Deb's site, figuring out exactly where I am in the process.

Some things I've already done without being prompted and just failed to write up. Others I have not, and so I think what I will do those rather than repeat myself and waste time. So, the next prompt on my list is this one:

Go some place that is sacred to you and to use the experience to guide you in your work.

This may have to wait a few days for the weather to permit it.

But right now I'm just going to crawl back into bed with Frances.

October.

IT'S OVER.

FubarFoto documenting yours truly right before the bloodshed.

Well, AbraCadaver is, anyway. October is still just beginning, and thank all that is dark and spooky for that. The show was a huge success (I heard we had three walk-outs this year, which may be a new record) and the feedback I've gotten so far indicates people thought it was our most sophisticated production yet. I am truly blessed to work with so many talented and passionate people - it means we can keep scaring the living bejeezus out of people year after year.

The last act this year involved my darling little sister murdering me horribly on stage. My cousin was in attendance and she said that while the people around her reacted to our fighting with winces, she could only snort and think "sisters." Indeed, I think it would be hard to fight more convincingly with anyone BUT Voodoo - we've been play fighting for years, after all, and if we slip and actually hurt one another we won't be all that angry. And hurt ourselves we did - I cannot begin to tell you how many bruises I have, and my left knee is missing most of its skin. Worth it. However, these bumps combined with the physical exhaustion of both setting up and taking down the stage dec this year has left me pretty fucking sore.

This is not entirely a bad thing - it is a reminder that we live in the body. And some of us have not been looking after those bodies as well as we should.

October marks one of the traditional Witches Sabbats that I hold dear - Samhain. Halloween has always been my favourite holiday (and my favourite costume as a child was a bat, so we can see that goth is apparently a disease one contracts early on) and the spiritual side of this day is one that I have not been able to ignore with any great success even in my most secular phases.

Many people consider Samhain to be the Witches New Year. It's the final harvest, and as such acts as the death knell for the year.

Also a character on the old Ghostbusters cartoon.

I've come to approach the holiday as time to clear old old junk in order to set new patterns over the winter, and this year feels like a good one to really stop fucking around in. A lot of my plans over the past year started strong and fell flat, and that's a problem. I think I've learned ways to avoid the usual obstacles I create for myself, and now is a time when I truly have no excuses left to keep me from doing my shit.

And man, do I have shit to do.

AbraCadaver 2014: Deal With the Devil

So that was LAST year.

This year, the theme of the show is 'Deal With the Devil' and oh boy oh boy, am I ever excited about it. Obviously I won't divulge too much - the show is this Saturday, and for anybody who happens to be reading this you can get your tickets online at Brown Paper Tickets dot com.

This year my involvement has been primarily offstage, much as it was last year - I'm a co-producer of course, but I'm also a writer and it's there that I have the most fun. I wound up doing a lot of research into the history of witch trials for a piece, and I have to say... what the fuck, why are dudes so scared of people stealing their dicks? Like, come on guys. Grow up.

One of the things about writing for shows is that you get to hear some pretty unbiased stuff - you're not on stage, so people don't necessarily know your involvement. I think it was the second year of AbraCadaver that had what some people called 'the rape monologue' and what I referred to as "the demon possession monologue."

Now, certain topics are triggering for some people, and I'm not about to slam anybody for that. But what I have considered about that particular show is that in my piece rape was alluded to, while in another piece about a guy chaining up a zombie and fucking it it was considerably more explicit. The latter piece was preformed by a man, and mine by a woman. I feel this may have been a factor in one being more upsetting than the other. I don't apologise for my writing in general, and while I'm sad to have upset people I also feel that that's good. You SHOULD be upset by that shit.

At any rate, the horror continues this year. Because it is a horror show, not a Halloween show - a distinction Voodoo and I have been careful to make in the past few years. Halloween shows may have spooky skeletons, pumpkins, black cats. A horror show will try its hardest to disturb you. There will be blood... and maybe the Devil himself.

Spooky Ways to Waste Your Time

So, yesterday I stayed home sick, and since you can't sleep ALL day, the hours when I was not huddled in beed I was sat here with Miss Frances on my lap, playing spooky games online.

This is the face of love.

I found all of these on GameShed, because that means they were free. I also stuck solely to the ones I didn't have to download because that seemed like too much effort at the time. I'm a big fan of point-and-click games, mostly because I suck balls at real controls, so these are all of that sort.

Except this one: Little Phobia. You're a little boy who has to pee in the middle of the night. It is adorable and probably not hard for someone who has mastery over their motor control functions.

Whispers Room 6 has some extremely awkward grammar, as you might guess from the title. In it you play Mr. Johnson, whose wife and child go missing inside a spooky hotel. I'm sitting here trying to remember more about it besides the accidentally funny text, but I can't. So we'll say "you can waste time with it, sure."

The Insanity 2 has you play a reporter investigating an old asylum where a crazed doctor is fusing animals and people together. I had more fun with this one than I thought I would. The monsters are pretty cool, and trying to kill them was annoying enough to get the cat off my lap. Three stars.

Ghostscape 2: The Cabin is one of those 'walk around and find a bunch of shit' games, so if you hate those give it a pass. That said, I liked it because a) the Ankou is something I read about as a kid and b) it didn't have stupid jump scares and the puzzles made sense.

Q - You don't PLAY this so much as WATCH it. but it's pretty groovy if you consider it more of a vaguely interactive short film.

60 Seconds to Live - Exactly what it says. You have a minute.

Earl Gray is not remotely a horror game, but it has ghosts in it. You can treat these ghosts nicely or terribly, which was something I thought was quite fun. This is one of those "if I had children in my life that I could stand I'd play this with them" sort of games.

The Ugly sucked. It's like a choose-your-own-adventure in that every other choice is instant death. What's truly weird about it, however, is the graphics - everything is sort of hand-drawn like in an indie graphic novel, but then the gory shit is 'realistic.' It would have actually been creepier visually to just have everything keep that "I can sorta draw" aesthetic. Contains rape, and a dumb name for a serial killer. ('The Ugly'? Seriously? 'The Garrote Phantom' is better than that, jeez.)

Dreamgate Escape was fun. It doesn't seem to matter that you die, so I suppose it's a bit low stakes. I dunno I played that one right before I went to sleep again so my memory is a bit hazy but I seem to recall going, "oh, that was neat!"

These sucked, and all for the same reason:
The House 2
Real Horror Stories
The Halloween

Those three were some examples of the worst sort of point-and-click 'games' - you just tap on shit repeatedly until something happens, usually some shitty jump scare. That's not even a game, man. That's just tiring out your finger in a decidedly unsexy way. Two flippers down.

Annabelle.

I'm not sure if I ever recorded my thoughts on last year's haunted-house movie The Conjuring, but in case I didn't I'll sum it up here: it was half of a good movie.

(The first half, to be precise - the 70s vibe was funky, the haunting was creepy, and the characters weren't horrible. Buuuut then we got old grandma leaping off a wardrobe like Spider-Man and the super casual glossing over of "oh, the original house owner was a witch who KILLED HER BABY FOR SATAN and hung herself" and I was just done.)

In the film, our first introduction to our 'demonologists' is when two 20-something girls are explaining that they are being terrorized by a haunted doll. Apparently someone thought that this was scary enough to warrant its own movie despite the doll not being voiced by Brad Dourif.

Now, like The Conjuring and indeed The Amityville Horror, this movie - Annabelle - is supposedly based on a case investigated by Ed and Lorraine Warren.

Ed and Lorraine Warren were, by most accounts, full of shit.  More so than your average ghost hunter, even. Ed has been described as a bully, and was clearly not remotely interested in any serious research - apparently he had a copy of the Simon Necronomicon in his Occult Museum, and would tell people it was one of the oldest and most evil Books of Shadows.

Oh yes, the Occult Museum in The Conjuring is real. And Annabelle the haunted doll lived there! Here she is:

Image source. Oh yeah, baby.

It's a motherfucking Raggedy Anne.

Have you SEEN the doll they're using in the movie?

THAT'S PRE-POSSESSION. While I understand that the idea of Raggedy Anne chasing you down a hallway is pretty goddamn stupid, who in their right mind buys that terrifying piece of shit for his unborn child? If the father of my child walked into the nursery with that thing I'd be like, "fuck, I might be having a moron child because its dad is so stupid..."

Trailer here. Like, really dude? And she keeps the thing. I realise this is set in the 60s or 70s, but no WAY were you high enough to think that monstrosity was appropriate for a newborn.

At any rate, the film will no doubt continue to cast the Warrens as intelligent do-gooders instead of the attention whoring nutbags they were. (Lorraine, let's not forget, went on to appear on Paranormal State as Ryan's mentor. No wonder every case turned demonic.) I'm not going to list the accusations against the Warrens, because other people have done it already! Here a few podcasts which feature some people who are more in the know than I:

Monster Talk - the Warren Omission

Irreligiosophy - Ray Garton Interview.

Seriously, though. Fuck that doll.

A change is as good as a rest.

Miss Frances the cat has a favourite sort of toy: foam balls. She likes them because she can pick them up with her mouth, and she can bat them easily with her little clawless paws. The problem is that she would roll them under the bookshelf under my window, and so get them caught under the radiator. I'd have to pull the shelf out to rescue them. Today I was trying to find a place to move the bookshelf to that would solve this problem. Buuuut....

When you have a small apartment, there's only so many places you can put things. So I wound up moving the entire apartment around. Of course.

There also happened to be a thread on the pagan forum I frequent about "your faith in your home decor" today. I'm not a hugely religious person, but there's ample evidence of the shit I'm into all over the house.

This is where keys and spare change go. Cheap plastic tray + modge podge.

ice age

The Capricorn full moon can mark the end of a long run or dry spell. Perhaps you’ll feel it as the end of a personal, social, or professional era and the crystallizing of a new reality. 
- via Rose Marcus

I spent all of last night catching up with a friend I had not seen properly in ages. Without going into details, I will say we had a falling out and consequently we both backed away from the friendship. I am pleased to find, however, that the entire bloody stump of the past has been neatly cauterized by time and I can now enjoy this person's company with no weirdness, no ache in the chest, no misgivings whatsoever.

I walked home at five in the morning. The sun was turning the sky shades of rose and pale blue, and I was still drunk. It was a wonderful morning - maybe the best of the summer so far.

Then of course I got home, collapsed, got woken up by Frances the gremlin cat, slept far too little and eventually got up with a raging headache. My sister was kind enough to bring some painkillers down to my place and then let me lay about like roadkill for another hour before dragging me back outside.


Tonight the house needs cleaning and cleansing; tomorrow I'm hosting a candle-making party.

I stopped in Michaels craft store to get wicks a few weeks ago now, and found a whole candle making kit marked down from sixty bucks to under twenty. It comes with normal wax, but I also have some soy kicking around here somewhere. I own lots of essential oils - mainly blends, but some pure - and of course I have the herb cupboard. The kit comes with dye too, so if anyone wishes to colour their candles to match their intent they can.

By tomorrow night I will also be recovered enough to want wine. Because alcohol and melting wax are the world's smartest combination.

Apparently, John A. Macdonald would get drunk and yell at his dead relatives.

So, happy Canada Day on that note.

Assorted.

If you're not already listening to the Faculty of Horror... what's wrong with you?

No, seriously. Witches in Film is possibly one of the best goddamn podcasts I've ever heard. The witch as a dramatic figure is examined just brilliantly, and Andrea and Alex eloquently dissect one of my favourite films as both an adolescent and and adult: The Craft.


In other news, I saw Chelsea Wolfe in concert last weekend at the Electric Owl. Good stuff! Little slow - there weren't really any faster tempo songs played except for about a minute of Feral Love at the very beginning - but I enjoyed myself very much. Even bought a t-shirt.

The cat continues to be strange.

Frances tries to eat The Devil.

Her Royal Smashed Faced-ness.

Photo by Voodoo Pixie.

Her name is Frances. Alternately, Aunt Fanny.

Yes, that's why.

Familiar.

It's finally happened.

Following the death of Henry the Innsmouth Familiar (RIP Henry) I figured I was done with pets, and for many a month I certainly was. At some point I figured that talking to yourself sounds slightly less insane if there's an animal present, and began to wonder if I should get one.

I then got drunk and looked at cats on the internet.

I saw one beautiful cat on the VOKRA website who was an adult with long, jet-black fur and big yellow eyes. Her name was Mushball, or Moosh. I considered, and considered... and she got adopted.

A few weeks later, I looked at the Vancouver SPCA site and found a hair-covered gremlin. "Look at this hideous cat!" I gleefully declared and made people look at the picture. The page, however, had no bio of the cat - it was blank. Two days later I checked back out of curiosity and found a write-up of the cat's personality: six years old, shy, quiet, declawed*, indoor cat for life.

Perfect.

I made my sister come down to the shelter with me on Saturday to see the cat, who was named Poochie. Voodoo misheard me and thought the name was Coochie, prompting her to wonder why someone named their pussy after their vagina. Not that Poochie is any better.

She was chillin in her box, although emerged to check us out eventually. I filled out an application and then prepared to play the waiting game. They had to make sure everything was cool with my landlord - we are in fact in a building full of cats. Today I received a phone call saying I could go and pick her up, so Voodoo and I did precisely that. I think she meowed twice the whole way home - my sister was half convinced we'd been duped and had, in fact, a box of sand.

Let out of her box she promptly got stuck behind one of my bookcases, then hid under the bed. After a few hours she emerged. ...covered in the dustbunnies that I'd missed under my bed. Naturally.

Turns out she likes being brushed though, so that was easy to fix.

So this is my cat. She took a walk through my apartment after she came out of hiding, scoping everything out. Much to my surprise she then came right for me to be pet and brushed. She hide again when Voodoo came by - the knock at the door startled her, I think - but then she came back out after a few minutes to demand love from my sister as well.

Currently she's lounging beside me on the floor, seemingly very content. She's eaten and used the litterbox, so I think that means she has a good idea of where everything is. She is just the sweetest little muppet!

I just need to rename her. I have a few names in the running, so we'll see which wins out.


* -  I do not endorse declawing - it's a horrible procedure for cats. But I'm not going to NOT adopt a cat based on it, either.

In Song.

Kroppar by Valravn. I looked up the lyric translation to this one (it's in Danish) and immediatly got chills.
"Stand up
We have fallen
Stand up
Again and again."

Feral Love by Chelsea Wolfe. Chelsea Wolfe is fast becoming one of my favourite artists.

Shaker (Drink the Poison) by The Implicit Order. This one reminded me of my sister.

Banish Them All by the Implicit Order. This is, essentially, the Lesser Banishing Ritual. (It sounds like the archangels are in different order.)

Vévés, Kimonos and Headdresses

On the bus last week, my sister and I saw a young woman with a beautifully done tattoo sleeve comprised entirely of vévés. We both had to admire the skill of the artist, even as we raised our eyebrows up into our hairlines, since the young woman in question was white.
Like, white-white. As white as we are. Glow-in-the-dark white.

This is not to say Caucasians cannot practice Voudou - they obviously can. Karen McCarthy Brown, the author of Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn became an initiate, and Kenaz Filan is white. There are others who have been formally trained, and more still who have dabbled as a result of the widespread interest in African diasporic religions and folk magic. I count myself among the latter group.

"So why the fuck are you judging this chick's tattoos?" you might be wondering.

A few years ago now (Jesus, time flies) I actually saw another blog post on this exact same topic. It addresses the magical side of the WTFery, which I'm not really going to rehash except to say that yeah, it does seem a bit like an open invite for possession. But that's not terribly likely without the proper ritual framework, so I don't think it's terribly dangerous.

And, as was pointed out in that other post, the woman with the tattoos in question could actually be an initiate. Maybe she's a serious student of the occult. ...although I doubt it, since she appeared to have as many vévés on her arm as she could fit, which looks badass but is not something an actual student would do. The Erzulies do not like one another, for example, and so you would think an actual student would at LEAST put them on opposite arms.

Beyond the occult issues, what really bothered me was that big bad boogeyman again: Cultural Appropriation.

"You JUST SAID you're white and flirted with voudou gods!"

Yes, I did, but calm your tits for a second while I get a little more in depth.

Cultural appropriation is a big problem in both paganism and burlesque. I just attended the Vancouver International Burlesque Festival this weekend, and one of the best acts I saw was Ruth Or Dare's solo as part of the Pandora and the Locksmith's Awakenings production. Ruth is First Nations, and the dance integrated traditional ethnic dance. She informed me after the show she had been working on that number for two years as a response to cultural appropriation within the community. I nearly cried.

With burlesque, it's very, very easy to wind up on the bad side of the fence concerning this topic, because the art form is very much about stuff that looks pretty. Kimonos are beautiful. Saris are gorgeous. You see things and think, "aha, that would make a good act!" and very often do not think past that.

I've done it. My very first burlesque act was inspired by Japanese imagery as seen in horror films and anime, set to my favourite Visual Kei song of all time. It wasn't designed to be offensive; it was a love-letter to things I adored. But would I do that act today? No. No, I wouldn't, because as much as I had a love affair with the culture, it is not mine.

In paganism and the occult community, the very same thing happens a lot. You see a pretty thing, and you want to see what you can do with it. Fortunately, there's a chance to truly educate yourself on the practices you are interested in. Unfortunately, a lot of people don't bother, and some will even hide behind the Chaos Magic defense: use what works, none of it really matters really, hail Eris.

Have you noticed how many chaos magicians are white cis-dudes? You know, the people who are used to being able to use whatever and whoever they want? I'm sure there's absolutely no connection, though. /sarcasm font.

Now, not every chaos magician is a total prick - the majority of serious practitioners are really big on research, as they don't just want to cherry-pick beliefs. A big part of Chaos Magic is true paradigm shifting, and that requires immersion, and that does not allow for a haphazard system unless one wants to fuck oneself up really badly.

Eclectic pagans of the Wicca 101 school are also really, really bad about this - their source materials often advocate a magpie approach to spirituality that can hinder the seeker's growth and harm the living cultures from which they are adopting things. Because really, that's where shit gets messy.

African diasporic and First Nations religions are alive. They are still around. This does not mean that a white person is barred from learning about them, but when approaching these systems one must do so with honest respect and an understanding that we have no right whatsoever to expect to be allowed to learn their secrets. If I approach a Voudou priestess and ask to be taught, it is her right to tell me to go blow myself.

Both First Nations people and African Americans have a long, long history of being used and abused by Caucasians. That does not make us whiteys all evil people, but it does mean that there are hundreds of years worth of us stealing shit that's not ours. So in this modern age, when we are all hopefully striving towards equality, for us to take symbols or bits and bobs from a repressed minority's religion just because we like the look of them is morally disgusting.

Intent matters. It matters a lot. And history matters, too.

I've worked with the lwa. My involvement with those spirits has been minimal if very enlightening and I would not dare call myself an expert or a true adherent. Just because I know a little, would I tattoo myself with what is traditionally used as a conduit to the spirits? No. I have no right to do that. I actually feel similarly about certain First Nations symbols in tattoos; I adore the artwork of the Pacific Northwest indigenous peoples (especially Kwakwaka'wakw) but I don't think someone as pasty pale as me has any business getting something I may not understand on my body. 

That girl on the bus may very well have known what she was doing. I didn't get a chance to ask her "Who did these for you? Are you a practitioner? Why did you get them?" and perhaps it speaks to my own snobbery that I would assume they were simply done for aesthetic reasons. On the other hand, getting those symbols is taking a bold move when you are outside the culture and if you're never challenged on your motivations, you may never learn that you don't get to have everything you want.

"DOLPHINS ARE GREYS?!"

Earlier in the week, one of my social engagements was tea with my sister and our friend V. V is a woman who is unabashedly mystical. I know that some people would find a lot of what she says pretty new age-y and therefore dismiss it, but I find myself in awe of her utter lack of fucks given in regard to people finding her a bit floofy-doo. She's on her own spiritual journey, dammit, and she has no time for your opinions on the matter.

My sister and I both find that as we age we get more hippy about things. Although she has not yet come over to the yoga side, my sister is currently doing wellness exercises provided to her by a friend who is a yoga teacher. Voodoo has some anxiety issues, and she's taking a holistic approach to dealing with them. I continue with my ongoing attempts at a healthier life physically, mentally and spiritually. Unlike V, however, we continue to be self deprecating about our activities.

There's a particular episode of the Last Podcast on the Left that we reference a lot: Ley Lines, Dolphins, and the Indigo. Specifically there's a portion of the episode in which the boys attempt to do a dolphin meditation. Whenever Voodoo or I start to feel a little to out there, we reference it and tell one another to pick up quartz with out butts.

I don't think that we're unique in our contradictory attitudes towards the metaphysical. On the one hand, you recognise the absurdity in bringing a hunk of black tourmaline to work to negate the shitty vibes of the office setup, but on the other hand... you totally did that anyway.

We both also recently purchased nebulizers from Saje. We'd been eyeballing them, wondering if they were worth the money since they're not exactly cheap, and then the less fancy models went on sale. We each picked one up, and we both love them. Seriously, totally worth the forty bucks. I already have a huge collection of essential oils and oil blends that I got from my mom, and using the nebulizer is so much nicer than using an oil burner. Less hassle, less mess, better smell... oh, it's delightful. I have no idea if it's magically sucking ions out of the air or whatever the fuck else it says it's doing, but I give it a thumbs up.


I have nothing good to wrap this entry up with, so have a picture instead:

Adventures in Home Colour

I got sick of having blue hair.

I was toying with the idea of going lighter, but after trying on some of my sister's wigs I saw that it really is not flattering on me.  My friend Ava Lure had suggested I go ultra dark green ("Like Sailor Pluto," were her actual words) which was an idea I really liked. So I was been going back and forth between the idea of dark green, and just regular old ultra dark brown. I need to see my cousin for a haircut anyway  and so I figured I'd talk to her about it.

Buuuut... Wednesday after work I snapped in London Drugs. They had some Colour B4 and Colour Oops on sale - products I've only ever seen available in the UK that claim to get rid of dye without bleach. I figured... fuck it. If I really mess it up I can get my cousin to o a rescue mission.

So! First the Colour B4 shit. It takes about an hour with all the rinsing, and it did... not much! I mean, I guess the blue was lighter, but just washing it several times would have done the same thing. Maybe it works better on regular dye, but for me? Not worth it. The Colour Oops was a bit more expensive so maybe it's more effective.

I decided to go ahead with the dye anyway. I used L'oreal Healthy Look in Darkest Brown - it's a demi-permanent, since I figured that would be easier to fix just in case I fucked it up.

After drying my hair, and it appeared to have gone well, until I noticed one or two bits at the back that didn't get saturated and so were still blue-ish. The advantage of having thin hair is always having extra dye, so that shit went back on my head again. Why yes I fished the box out the trash, why do you ask?

So there we have it. The blue was undeniably fun, and I'm glad I did it, but maintaining a bright colour is just not for me.

Magick Queendom/Glitterotica

Pictures of yours truly from Cabaret du Passe by the always awesome Bob Ayers:

My personal favourite.

 I even sewed that dang sleeve harness.

Reading from The Book of the Law while my sister interpretive danced it.

Check out the rest of the photo set too! The gals all looked amazing, and there's shots of Misty Greer's new collection.

The Falcon is landing.

In just a few days time, my brother from another mother will be visiting from England.

You cannot possibly comprehend how dangerous this is for the universe.

Pete (aka Ginger Falcon, aka the Former KNOFC, aka the English Leprechaun') is one of the few people on the planet who knows all aspects of me. There has never been any artifice between us, no need to impress. He is one of those rare individuals with whom I felt immediately comfortable, and have remained on a nearly identical wavelength with. I would wager to say Pete is the only man on the planet who knows me as well as my closest female friends do.

But unlike my closest female friends, Pete likes the Sisters of Mercy. Worse still, Pete is into the exact same occult bullshit that I am.

I'm planning to take one day off work during the week - I'm putting in extra hours this week in order to be able to do so - but even if we only have evenings together I anticipate there being far too much booze, many bizarre conversations, terrible movies, and probably some horribly damaging magic that ruins our lives for a few months before making everything way more interesting and fulfilling.

Shawna and I plan to have him on the podcast, and if we get way too fucked up we'll try and summon horrors from the depths one night. Why the fuck not, eh?

"IA! IA! Jesus I'm hammered..."

Stoked.

I AM DECEPTION INCARNATE.

From shower to stage.

How I learned to stop worrying and killed a Smurf.

The Saturday before last I strolled into the salon my cousin works at and sat down in her chair. I was badly in need of a cut - I'd let my bob grow out a bit and the back was starting to drive me nuts. We chatted a bit and then I asked her the question I'd been considering since I'd booked the appointment.

"Can we bleach this?"

She looked me over, considered, and said, "Let me check my time."

Luck was in my favour, and soon enough I was sitting there with my scalp burning in that itchy, not-quite-horrible way anyone who has ever stripped their colour knows.

I've been dying my hair black for years - it's my default. As such I couldn't exactly go blonde, but my cousin bleached me out pretty good. (Took two sessions.) We then slathered on a deep cobalt blue.

Yes, at 32 years old, I have blue hair.

 Here are things I'd forgotten about having unnaturally-hued hair:

- Your bathtub will take on a new shade. Mine looks like I dismembered a Smurf in it.

- If you're like me and you figure you may as well go all the way, you'll spend time in the drugstore holding eyeliners up to your hair to try and match your eyebrows. (Shadows tends to have sparkle, so they're useless.)

- Your makeup routine may need adjusting. The blue tends to highlight the circles under my eyes (which I swear get worse every year) and also wash me out a bit. I actually had to buy blush.

- You will spend a few days adjusting to the looks you will naturally draw.

- Little kids will LOVE your new look.

So why did I dye my hair blue? I love being a brunette, but I've wondered since hacking my hair off what it might look like lighter. So this is basically Step One in that direction - once it grows out some, I'll talk to my cousin about taking it a bit lighter. Eventually I'd like to see if I can't rock a pale colour or possibly even a platinum. This may not work with my skin tone, but we'll see.

In the meantime, I am finally used to the bright colour in the mirror every morning. My biggest concern when I dyed it was that I would look too young - like I was trying to be a teenager again. Thus far that doesn't seem to be an issue, thankfully.

I realise that I may come off as a very shallow person, as I tend to talk about glamour and the power of visuals a lot, but I'm a Libra, what did you expect?  More seriously, I find it continually fascinating how our self image is entirely malleable and the past year has been an exercise in shifting perspective for me personally.

Every so often you need to shake up your image of yourself. 

Right, Creepy Tiki Mug?

Blue hair means relearning not to give a fuck. It means taking myself a bit less seriously. It means not settling into patterns because that's how I feel I should be. I can get locked into ideas of myself, and while they don't tend to make me miserable, they can limit my experience. Drastically altering my dumb hair colour proves, in a weirdly tangible way, that I can do shit I might not usually. I'm taking a can-can class next month. I'm seriously considering putting together an occult group. My body continues to become stronger, and my brain seems eager to catch up.

I encourage anyone reading this to do something just a little bit different with themselves, if only for a day. You might not shift your whole paradigm, but you might open yourself to the idea of such.

New Year, New You:: Something You’ve Been Putting Off

Stop being a slag, stop complaining, stop coming up with amazing awesome reasons as to why you can’t do it right now and close your eyes and grit your teeth and just do it. 

I've been meaning to write this post for a while. 

Yeah, sorry, that wasn't funny.

 Got several things sorted - financial and organizational. Fiddly little things that have needed to be done but I kept putting off because they were not immediate concerns. Have maintained my housecleaning, which is no great shock since I seem to be naturally fastidious in that regard. More happily, I've forced myself to go running more regularly and have also been sticking to a weekly offering schedule for the non-corporeal entities that hang out in my space. (I use Jason Miller's offering ritual, as seen in both The Sorcerer's Secrets and Protection & Reversal Magick.)

So there's not really a big awesome post to be had for this one, because there isn't any one big thing I've been avoiding. Although I DO have to work out my acts for Cabaret du Passe this week, so I guess the moral of this post is that there's always something else that needs doing.

Hurr.

"All wickedness is but little to the wickedness of a woman."

Sometimes I think I incarnated as a woman just to make shit more challening.

I am fortunate - I may have grown up poor, but I currently am employed and have a home and food. I'm Caucasian, able-bodied, and heterosexual, and there is privilege in all of those things. But for all of those advantages I'm still stuck in a meatsack that is subject to a terrifying level of hatred for no good reason.

We live in a society that is deeply ill. I was reading an article about the genre of revenge porn, and the author discussed women whose ex boyfriends had posted not only sex tapes or nude photos, but also their real names and addresses to the internet. These women got a ton of creepy shit, obviously, but they also had a startling amount of anger directed at them. From strangers. Their sex life made strangers who had jerked off to it upset enough to hunt them down and tell them. What?

About your confused dick, I mean.

While a modern pagan tearfully encouraging us to "remember the burning times!" makes me throw up in my mouth a little, it is impossible for me to look at something like the Malleus Maleficarum and not want to go, "yeah, not a whole fuck of a lot has changed..." when it comes to gender issues. It's depressing, and more than that it's baffling.

I do not understand how so many men can hate women that much. It does not compute.

Women are objects. Women are weak. Women are dangerous. Evil succubi and hysterical fools. It's almost like a long time ago some old dudes with erectile issues decided that one gender was responsible for their lack of boners, and so decreed that anything female should be reduced to a series of parts that only have value if a man says so. And for some stupid reason we let that sickness rot in our society for, oh, a good several hundred years. It's 2014, and just saying "hey this is bullshit" is enough to get a terrifyingly large percentage of half the species angry. And when they throw their tantrum, they unfortunately use the same tactics that have worked for years and years: intimidation, ridicule, and in extreme cases physical violence.

So. When I realise I can't go jogging because I stayed too late at work and now it's too dark and potentially rapey, when I read magical theory that relegates the 'female' energies to passive roles, and when I see a group of men dismiss a woman by labelling her as crazy or oversensitive... I try to remind myself that these are symptoms of a cultural sickness. As unfair as it is, simply bitching won't help. I need to remember to DO shit, and in a way isn't it good to have the tougher road? Makes you learn more! I mean, I could have been born as Justin Bieber or one of those Rich Kids of Instagram, but then what fucking spiritual lessons would I learn then, huh?

On the other hand, maybe the Men's Rights guys and those German monks who wrote the Malleus are right and I really AM a weak willed, sinful creature who wants to steal penises and fuck the devil and eat babies. In which case...

ROCK AND ROOOOOOOOOLL!

Yeah, take that, Pinterest.

Working in animation means that you sit at a desk all day, and that desk is always directly next to another desk and another and another... Picture IKEA tables in rows, each with a computer tower, a monitor, and (if you're lucky, which I am) a cintique. There's not a lot of space, and most people bring in things to put on top of the computer towers to make their tiny space a bit more theirs.

I really wanted a plant on my desk, but we get absolutely no natural light where we sit and I also want to be mindful of people's potential allergies. So I hit google, and google popped up this article on Lifehacker about moss terrariums.

"Moss!" I said. "Moss is free! I live in Vancouver, moss is fucking everywhere!"

So I took some moss and stuffed it into a mason jar ($2.23) and, because I'm a hippy, tossed a quartz crystal point in there and BAM. Terrarium for less than the price of a latte.

I'm going to put it on top of my computer tower tomorrow. AND LET THE EARTH ENERGY FLOW OR SOME SHIT.

I actually think I'll try this again with, you know, more effort.

New Podcast: Listener Questions (or: Jerry Sadballs)

New episode of Stripped, Scared and Sacred in which Voodoo Pixie and I answer some questions. (Also available on iTunes under 'voodoofortuna' for some reason... I need to figure out why.) We also try a new gin. ...I may have tried a lot of it.

Speaking of Miss Pixie, she's had her surgery and is doing pretty well. She should be ready to go back to work on Monday. Many thanks to everyone who sent good thoughts her way. Ya'll are wonderful.

Saturday

Well hello, internets! Have you missed me? I've missed you! My internetting for the past two weeks has mostly consisted of staring glassy-eyed at Tumblr in the half hour or so between work and bed. It's been an awful lot of overtime at the office, you see, and consequently I've done a whole lot of nothing. I'd not cooked nor cleaned nor run, and was feeling worse for it.

Today, however, I managed to haul my ass out for a jog and unfuck my habitat. My costumes for tonight's Tarantino show at the Rio Theatre are laid out, so all that remains to do is relax and then get all dolled up. I'm excited for the show, and not as nervous as I usually am. Partially this is because we've done the show once before, and partially it's because I seem to have attained a new comfort level. The last Tarantino show was a big deal to me personally, and last week's Taboo was the first time I have preformed and been one-hundred percent happy with how the number went.

Once I have another coffee, I think I'll be damn near blissful.


In other news, anybody who reads this blog should wander on over to the Indieagogo page for A Gift for Amelia. Contribute if you can, and pimp the hell out of the page regardless. I really want to see this project come to fruition. (Also Shawna might get to be in it, so there's an added bonus.)

Lots more I want to ramble about, but that's all for now.

The Witch Post Taboo

Totally eating chicken nuggets.

NYNY: Goals v2.0

2014: not off to a great start. This seems to be the consensus of pretty much everyone I know. Marital issues, break-ups, deaths, illness, depression... it's running the gamut of utter shit. So before I address anything else, I'm going to post a link:

Making Sense of the Senseless.


Right. And now it's time for me to press on.

Revisiting the previously stated goals from January:
1) To save a set amount of money a month. 
2) To become a better performer.
3) To continue to improve my physical health.
4) To complete a writing project.

1) Same as before. Easy peasy.

One day, I'll have my stripper coven.

2) Tarantino Burlesque has a second run at the Rio Theatre on March first. I'm going to tighten up all my choreo. I should be making an appearance at Cabaret du Passe sometimes soon, and I've got a solo in this month's Taboo Revue that I'm working on. It's a witch number. Because weirdly I don't have one yet. (And with all due respect to my esoteric sisters in the community... I need one more than almost anyone else I know.)

3) Running three times a week. The distances continue to increase, although I am still not very fast. My proposed schedule of morning exercise flopped, in part because there were yet more reports of assault nearby (Stanley Park to be precise, where I don't actually run expect on weekends during the daytime) and there are less people out at 6:30 AM than 6:30 PM.

Weights have been a bit spottier, but I'm just going to get right back to any-day-you're-not-running. Except Sunday. Fuck Sunday, it's for mimosas.

4) HOLY SHIT I HAVE A PLOT. Writing schedule is a bit off-and-on still, but hopefully now that I'm not so stressed out it will settle into a routine.

Magically, I actually have not done a whole lot in conjunction with the actual doing shit portion aside from some work done early on in January as a kickstart. It may stay that way until an issue arises as most of my spell-time has been devoted to emergency issues instead.

Okay, so this is where we left off last time...

Use your preferred method of divination to figure out both what you can do to make sure these goals will happen and also to figure out what road blocks keep you from this. 

Thoth deck, one-card pull for potential blocks on each issue.

1. Money goal: Fortune. Circumstance and having to be patient. This also speaks to the cyclical nature of the industry I'm in, and is a reminder that finances will come and go so my planning needs to be better.

Babalon.

2. Performance goal: Lust. This is amusing since I have been wanting to do a Metropolis number for months (which may or may not ever happen) specifically the Babalon scene. So hilariously the thing keeping me from being a better performer is apparently my reluctance to really give myself over to passion. Well, that's something to keep in mind for my next solo!

3. Health goal: The Magus. Just Do It. (Apparently that slogan was taken from a murderer. Way to go, Nike.) Willpower and desire. Mind over matter.

4. Writing goal: The Chariot. The Chariot card in tarot is rarely ever actually moving. So, as usual, this is the lack of momentum issue. This is especially bad with writing since there are many, many times where you would rather do anything else than sit there and put words on a blank screen. When it's good it's sublime - the other 90% of the time it feels a lot like dental work.

Consult whatever inner or outer spirits you may work with as to what’s blocking you from achieving your goals.

Using the glow-in-the-dark Canadian Ouija (it says 'oui!') I attempted to contact my inner self. My sister acted as scribe. After singing some Pink Floyd (to which the answer was 'no') I proceeded to ask a few questions, the most relevant being "what is my major block in life in general?"

"G. O. M. E. R."

"Don't be such a gomer?!"

"YES."

Thanks, subconscious. (My sister decided we should google the word. Not only is it in reference to Gomer Pyle, but according to Urban Dictionary it also means, 'medical slang for a patient who "has lost--often through age--what goes into being a human being."' THANKS SUBCONSCIOUS.)

Gibraltar.

So, I can talk about this now. The other week my sister had to go to the breast clinic for a mammogram and ultrasound because her GP found a lump in her right breast. Unfortunately, because her breast tissue is so dense, they had to do a biopsy last week.

We kept it fairly on the down-low. but yesterday we got the results back.

Good news: it's not cancer.

Bad news: they don't know what it is, and she needs to have surgery to remove the mass.

My sister is understandably upset. We both cried a lot; we were scared but relieved at the same time. She has a meeting with the surgeon on Wednesday, so we'll know more about what has to happen then, but in the meantime we're trying to hang tough. Shawna deals with stress by being social, and I deal by hiding the fuck away, so she'll try and stay busy and I'll jog and write a lot.

Also maybe some of this.

My sister and I are extraordinarily close. It's difficult to explain in words how strong the bond is between us, and the closest we can usually come is to reference pop culture: all the sets of sisters in Practical Magic? That's us. Ginger and Bridgette in Ginger Snaps? Us again. Jesus Christ, even the hair colours are the same.

There are people who are and always will be a part of your soul. When they are threatened or hurt it makes you sick. The only thing to do in those situations is to be a motherfucking rock.