Thursday, December 29, 2016

Car charms (new item on Khari's Wiccan Treasures)

Khari now has car charms (amulets/talismans) available on her Khari's Wiccan Treasures Etsy page.

The latest car charms that have been completed, including a few moon charms.
Blue pentagram car charm.
Lunar hexagram car charm.
Sunburst hexagram car charm.
Originally, they started out as Christmas and Yule ornaments, then became Wiccan and pagan holiday ornaments. and then I decided that I wanted to hang one in the car--hence the car charm label.

Some of them are priced at $15 USD, and others at $20 USD, plus shipping and handling.

Each charm consists of a ceramic piece, with a design on one side (they are hand-stamped, so it is impossible to do the pattern on both sides), glazed and fired, combined with beads and/or small crystals on a copper wire link, and hang from a ribbon.

Khari also labelled them "prayer charms"--and they have their own little section in her Etsy shop. 

Saturday, December 24, 2016

Twelve days of Trump Christmas

On the first day of Christmas, President Trump gave to me a bill for a really great wall!

On the second day of Christmas, President Trump gave me two journalists jailed, and a bill for a really great wall!

On the third day of Christmas, President Trump gave me three terrorists tortured, two journalists jailed, and a bill for a really great wall!

On the fourth day of Christmas, President Trump gave me four swamp gators, three terrorists tortured, two journalists jailed, and a bill for a really great wall!

On the fifth day of Christmas, President Trump gave me five golden signs, four swamp gators, three terrorists tortured, two journalists jailed, and a bill for a really great wall!

On the sixth day of Christmas, President Trump gave to me six friends defriending, five golden signs, four swamp gators, three terrorists tortured, two journalists jailed, and a bill for a real great wall!

On the seventh day of Christmas, President Trump gave to me seven Chinese hats, six friends defriending, five golden signs, four swamp gators, three terrorists tortured, two journalists jailed, and a bill for a really great wall!

On the eighth day of Christmas, President Trump gave to me eight millionaire tax breaks, seven Chinese hats, six friends defriending, five golden signs, four swamp gators, three terrorists tortured, two journalists jailed, and a bill for a really great wall!

On the ninth day of Christmas, President Trump gave to me nine bags of Cheeto dust, eight millionaire tax breaks, seven Chinese hats, six friends defriending, five golden signs, four swamp gators, three terrorists tortured, two journalists jailed, and a bill for a really great wall!

On the ten day of Christmas, President Trump gave to me ten atomic bombs, nine bags of Cheeto dust, eight millionaire tax breaks, seven Chinese hats, six friends defriending, five golden signs, four swamp gators, three terrorists tortured, two journalists jailed, and a bill for a really great wall!

On the eleventh day of Christmas, President Trump gave me eleven midnight rage tweets, ten atomic bombs, nine bags of Cheeto dust, eight millionaire tax breaks, seven Chinese hats, six friends defriending, five golden signs, four swamp gators, three terrorists tortured, two journalists jailed, and a bill for a really great wall!

On the twelfth day of Christmas, President Trump gave to me twelve bankers totally in charge, eleven midnight rage tweets, ten atomic bombs, nine bags of Cheeto dust, eight millionaire tax breaks, seven Chinese hats, six friends defriending, five golden signs, four swamp gators, three terrorists tortured, two journalists jailed, and a bill for a really great wall!

Ain't Donald Trump the most winnest Santa Claus ever?

Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Come to the dark side

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Welcome to the winter solstice (Yule) edition of the Tarot Blog Hop (unless you live in the southern hemisphere or equator zones, in which case--could you please send the sun back this way?).

This time the theme is recieving messages from the Dark Side, looking for hidden messages from the universe, for hidden abundance buried beneath leaf, snow, soil, and the general rubble that we call everyday life. Or as one philosopher put it, "Come to the Dark Side--we have cookies." 

Tree of Life Tarot Spread
One of the Tarot spreads that I use a lot for reading is the Tree of Life spread. It is based on the ten sephiroth (the circles) of the Tree of Life used by some kabbalists. To these ten spheres, there is occasionally added an eleventh sphere to represent the division between the mortal mind and the immortal soul.

In the halls of the Western Mystery Tradition, those schools that descend from the Hermetic schools and the Christian version of the kabbalah, each sephirah has a virtue and a vice. It is said that you cannot summon the positive aspects of the sephiroth without also having the negative aspects also manifest.

As such, I find that one can use the Tree of Life arrangement not only to read the positive influences in a situation or the makeup of a person, but one can also use it to examine the negative influences.

One can either just read the negative by itself, or one can use two cards per sephirah to offset the negative with a positive. I recommend the two card per sephirah, much like the rule of always balancing out a devil with an angel in practical workings.

One: Kether, the crown--the first moment (big bang/creation of the universe); Virtue: Attainment, accomplishment of the Great Work, union with the divine. Traditionally, there is no vice, but I personally read the negative here as things and forces that are preventing perfect union with the divine aspect of the universe.

Two: Chokmah, wisdom--the wheel of the zodiac and the sphere of fixed stars; Virtue: Devotion, piety, respect for the universe and nature. Vice: disregard for nature, and hubris, those moments when your ego tells you that you are bigger and more powerful than the universe, typically this leads the universe to crush you like a bug.

Three: Binah, understanding--Saturn; Virtue: Silence, knowing when not to interfere. Vice: Avarice, hoarding resources--a card here will tell you what you are amassing too much of, the stuff that you should be allowing to circulate instead.

Eleven (note that my count here is based on how correspondence charts of the Tree of Life are numbered): Daath, knowledge. Traditionally, not considered a sephirah, but rather the interaction between Chokmah and Binah, and between the upper three sephiroth and the lower seven. As such, it is not traditionally given a virtue, and is often viewed completely from a negative viewpoint. I use it to determine what a person knows, and what they don't know (but think that they do); it also gives me a strong hint of the concerns of a person when I am doing a reading without knowing the subject of the inquiry.

Four: Chesed, mercy--Jupiter; Virtue: Obedience to the divine will (or as I like to think about it, being willing to be an agent of the universe). Vices: Bigotry, hypocrisy, gluttony, and tyranny--the kingly vices, so to speak--the lies we tell ourselves about how noble and understanding we are when in reality, we are acting like petty children.

Five: Geburah, strength (severity)--Mars; Virtue: Courage and eagerness, pruning away of the dead wood. Vice: Destruction and warlike tendencies, taking of unnecessary revenges, loss of temper. If someone feels insulted by someone, or is reacting to other people unwisely, here is where you can read it.

Six: Tiphareth, beauty--Sun; Virtue: Devotion towards the task of understanding and living in harmony with the universe, being Christ-like. Vice: Pride and ego issues, those situations where one thinks that one is a saint, but is really just a road hazard waiting to happen.

Seven: Netzach, victory--Venus; Virtue: Unselfiness and generosity. Vice: Lust and playing the field, also hungers and addictions.

Eight: Hod, glory--Mercury; Virtue: Honesty. Vice: Dishonesty, including areas where one is lying to oneself. This is an interesting position--often I can tell how a person handles a Mercury retrograde by looking at the card that occupies this position.

Nine: Yesod, foundation--Moon; Virtue: Independence, the ability to self-start. Vice: Laziness, idliness, and what a person keeps putting off and kicking down the road (which sooner or later must be dealt with, but just grows larger the longer one puts off dealing with it).

Ten: Malkuth, kingdom (the material world)--Earth; Virtue: Discrimination, being able to separate the fools from the wise. Vice: Inertia and gulliability, what lies a person will swallow hook, line and sinker, and those issues that nothing short of a disaster a person is willing to deal with.

For those who work the zodiac or the elements, one can expand the idea of this type of reading to take advantage of those ideas using the traditionally agreed-upon positive and negative traits. And if you are accustomed to doing readings using the Opening of the Key (a Golden Dawn Tarot spread), you can even extend it to the thirty-six decans.

Thanks for reading this edition of the Tarot Blog Hop, and consider leaping to another blog in this Hop for other reader's insights into the Dark Side.

And may we all have a better year this 2017. Or at least, more cookies.

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Xmas sale (99 cents Thelema and the Necronomicon)

The author of Light Out of Darkness -- Lux E Tenebris --Thelema and the Necronomicon (Gaius Corbin) is having a 99 cent USD xmas sale on Amazon. Warning: This book, while written by a real ceremonial magician (and containing some actual information), is a satire that pokes fun at the occult book market.

(And yes, I am getting a percentage for sharing this information...because I refuse to use my powers for good.)

Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LWYN70X  (Always check price before buying.)

Thelema and the Necronomicon (Gaius Corbin)

Obviously, someone is trying hard to make this go viral. 

Just chuckful of jokes, isn't it?

And they make fun of a lot of magicians, including myself. 

Saturday, December 10, 2016

New pottery now available (chalices and a witchy coffee mug)

Today, Khari uploaded several new pottery pieces up on the Khari's Wiccan Treasures Etsy page.


Custom orders now available in iron bronze and iron brown color combination.
Custom order chalice glazed with iron bronze and iron brown glazes with a choice of symbol and scroll--$35 USD (plus shipping and handling)--eight weeks to make (eight step process).

Symbols:
triple moons - plain
triple moons - with pentacle
pentacle - small
treskele
spirals
god symbol
knights templar cross
runes
other celtic knots (to be pictured later in other listings)

Choices of detail scroll pattern:
leaves
vines
round spiral
square spiral
sideways spiral (like Mayan style)
moons
celtic knots


Dark mottled blue and black triple moon pentacle chalice.
Ready to ship--Dark mottled blue and black triple moon pentacle chalice--$30 USD plus shipping and handling.


Food safe--lead free glaze. Seven inches high, holds twelve ounces of liquid. Perfect for ritual use.


The Witch is In coffee mug.
Wheeled thrown mug--ready to ship--"The witch is in"--$28 USD plus shipping and handling.


The mug is designed with spirals going around the mug and the triple goddess pentacle symbol on the opposite side. This mug was hand painted with a teal underglaze, fired, and then hand painted again with Lavender on the outside and Pansy Purple on the inside.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Not a big enough safety pin (trigger warning--rape culture)

After a long year, it is finally time to put 2016 in the rear-view mirror. Unfortunately, the events of 2016 are now sitting drunk in the backseat, looking for a taco truck, and loudly lecturing you on the fact that poor people are the real reason that poor people are poor. It won’t be so bad if you had fun at the party where 2016 latched onto you like a gropey racist uncle; but let’s be honest, no party is ever good when the DJ decides to leave early and has ingeniously wired the sound system to talk show radio in a way that no one can figure out how to turn it off.

I was so hoping that after the longest election in human history that I could get back to the really important things in life: writing bad Necronomicon satire and posting cat pictures. But no, 2016 has decided that my couch is a good place to sleep off its hangover—soon, my floor will be knee deep with pornography and empty pizza boxes. It would be OK if 2016 planned on paying some of the rent; but 2016 is going on and on about this really cute billionaire it has met, who merely wanted a few votes and tax breaks, and you just know that 2016 is going to stiff you for all the bills until long after the cute billionaire had broken their heart.

(Is that description too harsh? Too bad—the thousand random typewriting monkeys are still trying to find someone to read their iteration of Hamlet, so you are stuck with me, the happy little cynic.)

To say that 2016 disappointed me, outside of a couple of writing goals, is a vast understatement, kind of like saying that the surface of the sun is a little warm. During the course of 2016, I was called a Neo-Nazi, a racist, and a traitor to the country because I supported the idea of a woman President. The cherry on top of this dung sundae was the fact that back in 2011, I predicted that the first woman President would be Sarah Palin, and that someday Trump would run for President and actually win. It is a sad year when you are forced to watch one of your least favorite predictions come true.

(Yes, yes, I know—I doomed all of us when I predicted that. The line to slap me with a dead fish starts on the right. Or is it the left? Yes, I am as confused by political directions as much as I am confused by compass directions; that is what happens when you stand in the middle of the crossroads for too long.)

I will admit that I was a little shocked to learn that I was a Neo-Nazi, racist, and a traitor; the sole evidence of such being the fact that I am a former journalist and Bernie supporter (later Clinton supporter) who shares liberal news on Facebook.

But not as shocked as I was to learn that…

[A shiny metal robot with rubber arms starts shouting, “Danger Wilma Seeker! Trigger warning!” and waving its arms in panic.]

(Seriously—trigger warning—I am about to talk about rape culture.)

…all women who claim to been subjected to unwanted sexual advances, up to and including rape, are just dirty filthy liars.

Now before we go any further, let’s be clear about something: Not all Trump supporters are evil people. Some of them are very nice people. Not all Trump supporters are Neo-Nazis, KKK, racist women haters. The only thing that we can positively conclude about Trump supporters is that Trump being endorsed by Neo-Nazis and the KKK, his calling Republicans dumb enough to elect him (his words, not mine), and his “grab them by the pussy” comments were not deal breakers for his supporters.

Quite simply, a lot of Trump supporters voted for him because they believe that he is their best bet to bring jobs back to their states. The most important factor in their voting for Trump was his economic promises. They were not voting for racism or pussy-grabbing; they were voting for jobs. Their concerns about the economy outweighed any concern that they had about his less-than-savory stage presence.

Unfortunately, this creates a problem for them. Few voters are willing to admit that they would vote for a known ax murderer as long as they feel the candidate is going to address their most urgent concerns. Most people like to think of themselves as nice people, the type that would not sell out the finer points of polite society (tolerance and respect for other human beings) for things like money and success. And it was in the service of their self-perceived noble image, the idea that they are really good and decent human beings, that we got to watch some of the most amazing mental gymnastics and contortions seen outside of the tents of the Royal Jaundice Shakespeare Company.

When rumors of Trump being okay with giving women unwanted sexual attentions surfaced, many of his supporters responded that it was just a character assassination attempt by less-than-patriotic individuals. Then when the tape recording actually surfaced, not only was it character assassination, but they argued that he was unaware that it was a hot microphone and therefore, it should not be used against him (sorry as a public figure, he should be always aware of hot mics). When others responded “But he said it!” then they argued that it was just locker room talk. But it really got appalling when women started to come forward, confirming that Trump was someone who subjected them to unwanted sexual advances because one could see one of the worst aspects of rape culture in stark relief.

For those who are unfamiliar with the concept of “rape culture,” it consists of several pillars: one, women invite rape by being too attractive; two, men can’t control their sexual urges and therefore, are the real victims; three, “real” men are sexually aggressive; four, it is wrong to punish a man for making a simple mistake if they have potential to do great things; five, being the worst, women lie about being raped.

It is that last part, especially in light of Trump supporter’s defense of his pussy-grabbing comment that made me sick to my stomach. Basically, the argument went that the women coming forward were lying; and that if he had really subjected them to unwanted sexual advances, they should have complained and reported it when it occurred. When it was pointed out that this man held their future careers in his hands, supporters came back with “But he helped their careers.” When it was pointed out that such advances often lead to rape, his defenders argued that rape is not a real problem in this country because of the low number of reported instances. When confronted with the fact that rapes do go unreported, his defenders argued that they would have reported it because they were strong individuals and could not understand why it would go unreported. And if that was not injury enough, some defenders went as far as to argue that if there was even one case of a woman falsely accusing someone of rape, all such reports were lies (aka “no rapes actually occur—they are all false reports”).

One night during this spirited defense of Trump, I found myself in front of my computer crying. (Yes, I know—real men don’t ever cry.) I had just been told that I was misinterpreting one of the most traumatic Tarot readings I ever done (one of the reasons I refuse to do it for a living)—a reading for someone who was debating whether or not to report a rape. There is nothing like doing a reading for a crying client who experienced such a horrifying event to test your soul. The logic of the defender was that if it really happened, the woman should have automatically reported it—and therefore, the client had been lying to me while I was reading her cards. The defender quite honestly (unless they are just a knuckle dragging troll) could not wrap their mind around the idea that rape is hard to talk about, and is often unreported because of the “upstanding” individuals who rape have power over the woman. This troll (because I am unwilling to give them much benefit of the doubt) even told my friends who revealed their own horrible experiences (some of which involved underage experiences at the hands of relatives) that they were lying because if it really happened, it should have been reported at the time and because decades had passed in some cases, the events were all being made up.

So why the hell was I crying? Well, follow the logic—if such a traumatic experience had happened, it should have been promptly reported; therefore, no report meant the event did not actually occur. Extending this logic, the very fact that I did not report the child abuse I suffered as a child (including one instance where my dear mother beat me within an inch of my life, trying to drive the witchcraft and devil out of me) means that it simply did not happen. No wonder I was crying.

And that is just one of the many reasons why I took this last Presidential election so personally. It is just one of the many reasons that I have to openly remind myself that Trump supporters are not necessarily bad people (having lived for several years in such a conservative area, I know what the more likable of his supporters are like), but more likely voted for jobs and the prospect of a better economy—that they did not vote for his odious personality, but rather the hope of a better life. It does not make me any happier that he won, but it does help me understand that my deal breakers are not the same as other people’s. It is also a stark reminder that we have a long way to go in terms of basic human rights and basic decency because if this wasn’t a deal breaker for half the country, what is?!?

Thursday, December 1, 2016

Happy death-day Aliester Crowley

On this day, December 1st, in 1947, the Great Beast Aliester Crowley died. (In Thelemic circles, today is called the Greater Feast of Aliester Crowley.)

One of my favorite pictures of the Most Evil Man in the world.

People are still using him as an example of a really powerful magician.