Fifteen percent off at Khari Wiccan Treasures (pagan and magical pottery)

Now offering 15% off any purchase of $10 or more on Khari's Wiccan Treasures Etsy website. Just enter coupon code THANKYOU15, all caps, at check out. Go to www.khariswiccantreasure.etsy.com

This offer is good until August 31st, 2016.

Don't see what you want--private message Khari though Etsy. Custom-made chalices, pentacles, coffee mugs, and altar sets available.

Pansy Purple on lavender Triple Moon Goddess chalice.

Witchy Woman coffee mug in crazed copper.

Pansy purple on cobalt blue mortar and pestle (very durable).

Triple Moon Goddess cone incense burner.

Crazed copper Triple Moon Goddess cone incense burner.

Pansy purple on lavender Hocus Pocus coffee mug.

Dark green on lime green Triple Moon Pentacle chalice.

Lime green Triple Moon Pentacle coffee mug.

Stormy sea pentacle decorated chalice.

Shino mortar and pestle (for grinding up herbs).

Plus we have many other options for the discerning witch and magician.

Photography done by Morgan Drake Eckstein 2016. 

Two Prophets visit Chinatown (Prophets Visit Art Series)

Continuing my art series, Prophets Visit--in this shot, we see Chinese Buddha taking a selfie with a statue of himself....because that is what Happy Buddha would do.

Yay! It is me being sexy!

You can follow the whole series on DeviantArt.

Prophets Visit (a new art series)

My latest art project is photographs of the Prophets and Sages and Gods of various religions visiting famous places around the world...because it is art, dammit! And maybe, just maybe a little bit of mystic mumbo-jumbo social / religious / political commentary about how the founders and deities of various religions are just tourists and really fun to hang out with...because I am insane, dammit! And before you scream Sacrilege! and Heresy! and Blasphemy!--remember that I grew up in the arms of Wicca, and other pot smoking hippy religious philosophies...because my parents allowed me to hang out with my aunt, dammit!

If you want to follow the art series, stalk me on DeviantArt...because I am a very humorous artist, dammit!

And remember for just a dollar a month, you can encourage my insanity on Patreon...because I have bills to pay, dammit!

Or you could just buy random stories and rants from me on Amazon...because I have a soapbox and I am not afraid to use it, dammit!

Three Prophets visit the Denver Broncos at Mile Hi.

In this installment, three Prophets (Moses, Muhammad, and Jesus) visit the Mile High city and decide to take in a football game at Sports Authority Field at Mile Hi. Knowing that the Denver Broncos are better than the Oakland Raiders, they dress accordingly. Go Broncos!

House of Bast art studio open house (July 23 & 24)

If you are in Denver, Colorado this weekend, we are having another art studio open house. Come pet Studio Kitty. Touch some pottery before you buy it. Get a free pottery lesson (Saturday 1 pm to 5 pm only). Marvel at the thistle in Mad Uncle Morgan's garden.

Khari's Wiccan Treasures & Celtic Soul Jewelry and Pottery (House of Bast art studio open house event): July 23 & 24, 2016---located at 2727 Cook St. Denver, CO 80205 (the studio is at the back of the lot along the alley)---from 1 pm to 7 pm both days.

Some of the pottery that is available for purchase.

Pentacles for sale

As many of my readers know, my wife is a ceramic artist. One of the things that she has been making lately are ceramic pentacle disks. She currently has ten up on her Khari's Wiccan Treasures page, and there is another half dozen that I have yet to take photographs of. She sells them for $20 USD, plus postage and handling.

Check out her Khari's Wiccan Treasures Etsy shop. 

Cobalt blue with black underglaze pentacle.

Crazed copper with brown underglaze. 

Firebrick red ceramic pentacle.

Iron brown with black underglaze.

Key lime with dark green underglaze. 

Lavender with blue violet underglaze. 

Pansy purple with black underglaze. 

Pansy purple with purple underglaze. 

Sapphire blue with black underglaze. 

Stormy sea green with black underglaze.

Getting to know me (Tarot Jam)

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Welcome to the first Tarot Jam blog hop. My regular readers will note that this is the second Tarot based blog hop that I am talking a part in. The other one, the Tarot Blog Hop, happens a week from today. 

As always in a blog hop, if you like, you can navigate the hop though the Previous and Next links; and if there are any breaks in the hop chain, you can use the Master List link to hop over the broken sections. 

The theme of this blog hop is: Getting to know me as a Tarot blogger.

....I am not sure that I have ever done this subject on this blog. If I have, my apologies to my regular readers. If I haven't, I apologize for not doing it sooner. And as always apologizes for me being an opinionated angry blogger. 

My introduction to Tarot came in 1984. I may have read snippets about the Tarot before that point, but I had never actually see a Tarot deck in the flesh (so to speak). And quite honestly, I couldn't get a Tarot deck to work for me to save my life. (Therefore, I used "Norse" runes for years instead.)

When I stumbled my way into Hathoor Temple (1992)---a sort-of Golden Dawn lodge (no actual connection to the original Order), my superior forced me to create my own Tarot artwork. At the time, I did not see the point. And let's be honest, I am a terrible artist--the only thing worse than my writing is my art. 

But the Tarot did start working for me, so I guess that my superior actually knew what he was doing. And that is about how far as I ever advanced in the study of Tarot. I know the bare minimum about Tarot.

A couple of years ago, when I started doing the Tarot Blog Hop, I started to create my own set of Tarot cards---simply so that I did not need to worry about copyrights and obtaining permission to use images of other people's cards. My cards are....well, let's go with fugly as a description (I think that they may actually make people's eyes bleed.) 

There are times I like to pretend that I am going to finish the artwork for the current Tarot deck that I am designing (and we all know that is not going to happen), and actually find a way to get it published (yeah, no legitimate publisher is going to touch it), and sell a few copies (and by a few, I mean none at all). 

Mad Uncle Morgan (Morgan Drake Eckstein)

Quite honestly, I have no clue on how Tarot works. It does. And I have no current theories either. I leave that to the experts, those people who can do twenty readings a day, write decent articles, and perhaps even design decent cards. 

Fool from Mad Uncle Morgan's Political Tarot

Though the course of my current "art project," I have came up with a list of questions that I ask as I get ready to design a card. Basically, I ask:





What are the main symbols of the existing versions of the card?

What is the card's central meaning?

How does the card fit into the rest of the Tarot deck?

And what are my personal symbols to convey the card's meaning?





As the example shows, I get an F on all four questions, as well as an F for being able to draw anything better than a stick figure.

Some questions to ask when designing a Tarot card

Well, at least, I have no illusions about my abilities as a Tarot reader, writer, and artist.

Thanks for reading, and consider checking out some of the other posts in this blog hop---posts actually written by people who know what they are doing. Have a good day.

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Tarot Love

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Welcome to this edition of the Tarot Blog Hop. Today's topic is Love. And while there is a part of me that wants to talk about romantic card spreads--it is a really small part and easily beat up by the part of me that loves collecting Tarot cards and pictures of decks that I do not own yet.

One of the things that I really love about Tarot is the sheer amount of artistic creativity that has been poured into the Tarot over the last few decades. In part, this has happened because of technological advances--in fact with the advent of print-on-demand, I expect there to be an explosion of new artistic Tarot decks (some of which will only sell a handful of copies...and so it goes).

So let's take a look at some of the artwork that people have done Tarot-wise.

For the purposes of this post, I am resorting myself to the Sun card--I could have chosen any of the cards to feature today, but I recently saw a version of the Sun card that really made me want to talk about the Sun card. So here goes...

Vampire Tarot.

This version of the Sun card from the Vampire Tarot I find very interesting. Most Tarot decks portray the Sun card in a hopeful positive manner. Not this deck, this version is, well exactly how a vampire would look upon the sun, as a destructive force and quite life threatening.

Now, while the Vampire Tarot version of the Sun made have determined the choice of card today, don't blame that deck completely for my choosing of this Major Arcana for our tour today.

From the Secret Tarot.

The Secret Tarot is my current deck of choice to read with. And it has one of the most creepy Sun cards in it. Now, maybe I am just super-sensitive, but I want to say that there are a lot of creepy Sun cards out there--aka lots of naked children. Is it just me? Or are there a lot of creepy Sun cards out there? (Feel free to answer that one in the comment section.)

From the Sephiroth Tarot.

This one is not as creepy...unless you find naked angels creepy...which some people might. I do like this deck because it has a (faulty) cheat for remembering where the Major Arcana are located on the Tree of Life.

The artwork is quite nice on this version (Un Mei, I believe that it is from); plus there is a small lion cub--you must love lion cubs, especially if you are like me and work with Bast on a regular basis.

This card is from an Oracle deck--the Madame Endora, I think. I like it because of the mix of Egyptian and the art style. Therefore, while Oracle decks are not really Tarot decks (or that is the answer that I am using today), I am including this card in today's tour of Tarot artwork.

This card from the Adflatus deck (?) is a little busy, but cheerful. I am not completely comfortable with the lower half of the card, but it does have its own particular meaning as you probably can quickly grok.

The direction of the zodiac wheel in this version of the Sun card--from the Gilded Tarot--might disturb some people. Especially those people who like to argue about the placement of the zodiac in a Golden Dawn lodge.

It is a mouse-kangaroo...a mouroo...a kanouse...a whatever. I like it--it is whimsical.

Here is another whimsical Sun card. This one is from the rather expensive Hello Kitty Tarot deck. Should kids play with Tarot cards? Maybe, maybe not. But if you own a copy of this deck, the answer is a screaming Nnnnoooooo!!! (This is one of the most expensive decks that I have looked at in recent days.)

What version of the Sun card is my favorite? Oh, that is just a silly question, isn't it? My own version, of course.

After all, what type of artist would I be if I did not like my version the most of all? Of course, I may never finish my Monkey Tarot deck--but darn it, this version of the Sun card is my all time favorite Sun card.

So what version of the Sun card is your favorite?

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Trade secrets (31-HP Day 26)

Coffee stained
Enciphered and encoded
Old and browned
Handwritten recipes

Weigh and measure
Pound and dollop
Pinch and handful
Exactness counts

Fresh berries
Crushed and mashed
Staining hands
Blue and purple

Fresh onions
Skinned and peeled
Tears forming
Yellows and tans

Cactus lobes
Smuggled in a box
Covered with beetles
A delicate red

Pound of ancient
Dried up mummy
Such a delicious
Shade of brown

Old ways remembered
An artist's craft
Original colors
All handmade

WIP 2

Hmmm, do I like this background color?

Work in progress experiment 1

The Mythos Gang wants to be your friend.

This is an experiment to see if I could do something...something that I want to be able to do with my latest work in progress, and it is easier for me to see the actual results of the experiment if I post it to this particular blog. So feel free to ignore this post...unless you have a sudden urge to be interested in my latest work in progress: The Mythos Gang and the Circus of Horror (a fairy tale for the worshippers of the Old Ones).

No free editing from me

Bottom of the Sigillum Dei Aemeth.

Sometimes I am surprised at the stuff that I have to state that I thought was perfectly obvivous. Such as the following statement:

I do not provide free editing services.

The reason that I find myself having to say this is the fact that someone last month decided to cloud-source the error finding portion of an edit job (for their second edition--yes, I am talking about that one), and is now saying that their book cannot be that problematic because no one provided them with a long list of errors.

In my case, I mentioned an error I found a couple nights before...I was looking though the book to see what the author said about something (I am researching a book of my own) and spotted the error, so it was fresh in my mind. But that was not good enourgh for this person.

I am guessing that the author thinks that I should have spent a couple of days locating all the errors for him.

I am sure that those people who are paying me to edit stuff would have been thrilled to have me help this person for free.

If I am editing something, I am getting something out of the job--an hourly rate, a job fee, an exchange of labor, a percentage of the gross, an expensive book, or maybe a couple of plants or chickens. I do not edit for free.

The same goes for my writing, photography, and artwork. I have bills to pay, therefore I must charge for my time and energy. (And yes, I also charge for spellwork and divination.)

Now, some people will note that I still do first-reads and book reviews. Plus they will note that I do some volunteer writing.

In the case of first-reads, I am a first reader because I like the author and are friends with them (and like their books)...there is also a darn good chance that they are also one of my first-readers.

In the case of book reviews, a copy of the reviews end up on a blog with ads in the sidebar--therefore they are not completely free of monetary income. Futhermore, I recieve the books for free. (I used to pay for books that I reviewed; but now that I am established reviewer, I don't have to do that as anyone who looks at my coffee table can see--I have a couple dozen free books on it waiting for review.)

And in the case of my volunteer work, yes, I am donating work. But it is also advertising for myself, and I earn on the backend (such as Bad Monkey--the collected 2011 Hearthstone articles by Morgan Drake Eckstein). Plus if I had cash to spare--which I don't (thanks student loan debt)--I would be donating folding green energy to these organizations. (Yes, that includes the Legal Defense Fund.)

Of course, we all know that charging for my time and energy makes me a villian. But then again, everyone who flips burgers for a living is also a villian. At least, I enjoy what I am doing for a living.

Everything is going forward!!!

Turtle Monkey attacks with roly-polies! No Mercury retrograde involved.

Welcome to the "Everything is going forward" 2013 edition. Or at least, all the planets are going forward (no retrogrades) from January 30th to February 17th, 2013. Enjoy the next two weeks because the next time we have an all-direct period is late December 2015 (and it will be a short week).

[That is if you account for all the modern planets, including Pluto...which is still a planet in my book. If you just use the seven classical planets, you get a few more all-direct periods.]

And what does this mean?

Absolutely nothing, other than anyone blaming some crap on some planet or another being retrograde is dumb-ass wrong. Of course, most of the time that you hear someone blame something on a retrograde planet, they are being an ass-hat. (If I had a dollar for every time I heard something being blamed on a planet driving the wrong way down the zodiac highway...especially Mercury...well, I wouldn't have to write erotica to make money.)

Oh, I imagine that there are some magicians who are going to be practicing some specialized work over the next two weeks. But if you do not already know what type of work you would do in all-direct period, odds are that you can't learn enourgh astrological magic fast enourgh to take advantage of this period. And no, I am not telling you what my special experiment is for this cycle--it is a secret method, after all.

But other than that, everything will be normal--as in "generally messed up" because mankind probably should have stayed in the trees. Of course, that last opinion might be simply because I have been drawing a lot of monkeys lately. And I like monkeys more than some humans I know, especially those humans I consider ass-hats. For that matter, I like spiders and roly-polies better than some humans. (Centipedes and milipedes still must be nuked from space--there is no excuse for them.)

Anyways, enjoy your all-direct period. It is the perfect time to learn that not everything that goes wrong is the fault of a retrograde planet. Especially when there are human beings involved.

Working with woodcuts (Tarot)

Woodcut Justice.

As many of my regular readers know, I am currently involved in creating the rough drafts for a Tarot deck where every card has a monkey in it. What you might not know is how long I have been dabbling in Tarot deck creation.

One of my earliest experiments in Tarot deck creation involved the use of woodcuts/blocks. I learned a lot from this particular experiment--including the fact that you will probably never see me produce an entire deck done this way.

This particular card, Justice, was done in 1991 (I think).

The difficulties of this project made the hand-coloring of the Tarot that I needed to do for both BOTA and my Adept Minor studies with GH. Fra. OY look minor in comparsion. Only Hathoor Temple hit this level of insanity (and basically, you just needed to prove to them that you could create an entire Tarot deck from scratch if you really had to).

And then the monkeys took over the Pentacles

Three of Pentacles--Material Works (Monkey Tarot 2012 MDE)

Welcome to the Tarot Blog Hop for Lammas 2012. These readers who are doing the blog hop probably came from Jera Babylon Rootweaver's Tarot Taxi blog. My regular readers...well, let's just say that the Golden Dawn lounge in the Lunar Insanity Ward is quite lovely this time of year.

The theme of this particular Tarot Blog Hop is Pentacles: The Fruits of Harvest.

Lately for me, the fruits of harvest involves a lot of monkeys. First of all, the Sun card from the last Tarot Blog Hop caused a friend of mine to suggest that every Tarot card needed a monkey in it. Second of all, I am helping to illustrate a set of children stories...with monkeys.

The particular card for this post, the Three of Pentacles (Material Works), sums up some of my thoughts about work. The AE Waite/Pixie Smith version of the card shows a craftsman working while a monk and a hooded man look on. I always felt that they were supervising the craftsman.

One of my on-going questions about the Three of Pentacles is how the craftsman is getting any work done at all.

The invasion of monkeys into the Tarot that I am sketching finally gave me the answer. The bosses are too busy fighting among themselves to supervise the laborer.

This may seem strange to some of you, but it makes sense to me. Then again, I am one of those artistic types. A few years ago, I was a member of a crafter co-op. I remember one meeting where instead of discussing how to get business in the door, the discussion descended into how not to upset the customers. (Some of the artists were considering displaying some racy art.)

Let me be clear--they were worried about upsetting customers that they did not have yet. And that they were not going to get because they were more concerned with matters other than getting people into the craft show.

Let's be honest, there are a lot of people who get upset with artists: business-people, religious and spiritual leaders, lawyers, the poor who believe that artists make too much money, etc. And they all want to censor the artist and creative types...for the good of other people.

(No one ever thinks about what is best for the artist. And everyone always know more about what art is supposed to be like than the artist does. Seriously?!)

Even worse is when the artist starts to censor themselves because they fear that they might upset someone. A form of artist (writer) block occurs when a creative person starts to censor their work before it is even created to please the angry masses. And you cannot please everyone.

In the end, the only person an artist can make happy is themselves. One has to let one's critics fight among themselves on what elements of one's art is the most offensive. One should not censor one's work for the sake of one's critics, who are probably going to be unhappy, no matter what one does. And it goes without saying, do not read what your critics have to say...it will just make you feel bad.

So yeah, monkeys are invading my work and telling me that my critics are just unhappy poo-flingers. Who am I to argue with imaginary monkeys?! Needless to say, it is a rather strange harvest this season.

Next up on the Tarot Blog Hop is Andrew McGregor talking about patience and the suit of Pentacles. If there are any broken links in this blog hop, please click here for the master list.

[Update: July 2013: Due to differences in sales expectations and business philosophy, in early July 2013, I ceased to be involved in the Turtle Monkey project.]

 

Monkey Tarot 8 of Pentacles version 1

Version 1 of the Eight of Pentacles from the Moneky Tarot (MDE 2012).

Last month, many of you saw a version of the Sun card I draw for the Tarot Blog Hop. One of my friends liked the monkeys in the card so much that she wants me to draw a whole Tarot deck with a monkey in every card, a Monkey Tarot if you will.

Here is another card (rough draft) with a monkey in it. There is another picture that I am thinking of using for the Eight of Pentacles, but I thought that I would share this version with my readers...or at least, the uncolored version of it.

I am not sure. Do we really need an entire Tarot deck centered around monkeys?! Feel free to express your desire (or lack thereof) for a Moneky Tarot in the comment section. Remember only YOU can prevent me from inflicting a Monkey Tarot deck on the world.

Mooning the Sun (Tarot Blog Hop)

BIORC Sun Card--copyright 2012 MDE (All Rights Reserved).

Hi everyone! Some of you are my regular readers--and some of you doing the Tarot Blog Hop (here is a link to the masterlist just in case, there are any breaks in the Hop). If you are coming in from the regular readership, then you are pobably coming here through the padded room at the Lunar Restroom for Retired Secret Chiefs (no, you say--what do you mean when you say that I am making stuff up?!). Those from the Tarot Blog Hop, have came here from Jordan Hoggard's Tarot in the Land of Mystereum blog (or from the masterlist if there is a break in the Hop).

Today's Tarot Blog Hop theme is Celebrate the Sunrise.

For me, a lot of my observances and celebrations of the sun and its cycles are colored by the fact that I am a Wiccan. This is something that extends to the other members of the Order and lodge that I belong to (though the correct label for them is pagan).

I tend to think of this blending as "mooning the sun." For a religion that focuses on the moon, Wicca pays a lot of attention to the sun. There are Wiccans who do the annual drumming up of the sun. Four of the eight big Wiccan holidays are directly related to the main turning points of the sun's cycle, the two Equinoxes and two Solistices.

By the way, three of these four are built right into the Golden Dawn system...all Golden Dawn Orders can claim to be involved in the ancient pagan mysteries if they still observe these three events in their annual ritual cycle.

On the other hand, one could argue that the Golden Dawn pays little attention to the moon...unless you count the number of members who are Wiccan and pagan and/or check the phase of the moon before doing any major magical work.

Life as we know it on this planet would not be as it is if it wasn't for the interplay of the sun and the moon. Our planet has been blessed to have a large moon and a solar orbit that places it in a comfortable (or as comfortable as you can get in this universe) zone that supports life.

The best illustration of the play between the sun and the moon comes from Ancient Egyptian mythology. The original calendar in Ancient Egypt was 360 days, which was divided up into ten day periods (the 36 decans). This calendar would rapidly grow out of sync with the actual seasons of the year. The mythology of Anciet Egypt actually records an attempt to correct the calendar and explain "mytholically" what was happening.

According to the myth, the Earth God Geb made love to his sister, the Sky Goddess Nut. This act upset Nut's father so much that he forbid her to give birth during the days of the normal calendar. Nut. being pregnant with quintuplets, called upon Thoth to aid her. Thoth goes to the moon and plays dice with the moon; in this manner, Thoth wins five extra days to allow for the birth of Nut's children (Osiris, Horus the Elder, Set, Isis and Nephthys). By this act, Thoth starts to become a moon God.

The interesting thing about this myth, besides the interplay of the solar and lunar calendars, is the fact that the moon, over the course of billions of years, have changed the length of the day on earth, therefore changing the number of days in a earth year. Therefore the myth mirrors a scientific truth.

I was reminded of this story when I was creating the version of the Sun card that illustrates this post. Originally, I meant for there to be two cats sitting on the wall (because I have a problem with Sun cards with creepy children in them)--but by the time I was done, they had morphed into monkeys or baboons, a symbol of Thoth. The baboons of Thoth are said to celebrate the sunrise every morning by giving out loud cries. One can say that the Ancient Egyptians celebrated the sunrise by having monkeys moon the sun.

If you are proceeding with the Blog Hop, your next stop will be The Hermit's Lamp (Andrew McGregor).

Skip Dudchous has passed

The Secret Chief helping make the large Death card for the June OFM ritual.

 I just learned that Skip Dudchous has passed away. Skip was the artist for the Tarot deck that the BIORC and several other Golden Dawn Orders use; it is the deck that illustrates the current edition of the Magical Tarot of the Golden Dawn by Chris and Pat Zalewski. Skip died on the 8th at 10:22 am.

This particular passing of an artist affects me because 1) I had to handcolor a copy of his Tarot deck to complete my Adept Minor training (a task that everyone in the BIORC eventually has to do at that level), and 2) because I am going to be using a large version of his Death card for the late June Open Full Moon ritual. Skip will be missed and remembered.

[June 29, 2012--7 pm doors open, 7:30 pm community announcements, 7:40 pm ritual starts--Hearthstone Community Church Open Full Moon ritual, meets at First Unitarian Church, 1400 Lafayette, Denver Colorado.]

Maybe it is just me, but we sure seem to be having a lot of death going around the local community these last couple of years. Or maybe it is just that I knew so many of them. Either way, there are a lot of people that are on the list for the June 29 OFM, which is going to be about remembering the dead.

Developments in Golden Dawn color scale work



Golden Dawn Colors of the Sub-Sephiroth of Netzach of Briah.

One of the nice things that I can say about the internet, and the little corner of it that Golden Dawn inhabits, is that it is nice to occasionally see the work that other people have done in the Golden Dawn tradition. For me, it is especially interesting to see the results that other people got in those areas that I had already done experimental work in.

For instance, back in the first quarter of 2004 (it was sometime between December 2003 and March 2004---I don't really keep good dates in some of my GD sketchbooks), I was working with the Golden Dawn color scales. On the side, I was doing some specialized spell work. How specialized? Well, I needed the colors of several sub-sephiroth for targeting purposes.

The concept for extending the color scales is easy enourgh to figure out, which is probably why it is not considered important or secret enourgh for some Adepts. Personally, I like using the color scales and their extensions. At heart, I am still an artist despite the fact that I chose to be a slimy literary historian and writer of bad Russian Bride adcopy instead.

(I have absolutely no idea where the extensions of the color scales would fall in the curriclum of Golden Dawn, other than it is someplace in the Inner Order...or at least, the style of Inner Order that I am used to.)

A couple of days ago, I got to see a slideshow about the Cross of Victory. And today, I got to leaf through Volume V, Edition 3 (Vernal Equinox 2012) of the Hermetic Virtues journal which has an article by Tabitha Cicero in it.

(Is it actually "leaf" when it is a pdf? Yes, that is a writer's question.)

Tabitha's article, The Path of the Chameleon: Golden Dawn Color Studies, focuses on the logical extension of the Golden Dawn color scales. Basically, the color scales can be extended to provide colors for all the possible energetic interactions. For instance, the color scale work that I was doing in early 2004 can produce a palette of four hundred sub-sephiroth colors to allow one to tap into very specific sephirah energies.

(Actually, there is no need to stop at four hundred colors; one can go for a sub-sub sephirah if one desires to. And sub-sets can interact with other sub-sets; there are millions of colors to generate if one is willing to spend lots of time on this particular Golden Dawn method.)

Anyways, it is interesting to see that other people have also followed the various hints and instructions of the Adept Minor material and extended the color vocabulary of Golden Dawn to include energies like the sub-sephiroth. If you get a chance, be sure to buy a copy of Vernal Equinox 2012 Hermetic Virtues journal and look at all the pretty colors of the various sub-sets that Tabitha is exploring.

(I will admit that my color scales are slightly off compared to the ones that I have seen produced by Olen Rush, Nick Farrell, and Tabitha Cicero. There is a reason why I decided to make a living as a writer rather than as an artist. Nevertheless, in some cases, I am actually in the general ballpark of the colors that they have produced. It may be just simply the fact that I have very little formal art education---outside of a couple of classes, I am a self-taught artist. Or it could be the fact that I prefer working with colored pencils. Nevertheless, take my color examples with a grain of salt and work out your own set.)

Diclosure I do my own artwork

And the disclosures just seem to keep coming. Tonight's disclosure is inspired by something that happened on Facebook. A customer was complaining to one of my writer friends about the fact that she used Paint or Word to create the sigils in one of her books. Needless to say, the conversation was all downhill. Including a comment from me warning the person not to buy any of my books because my sigils are horrific ugly...which I was informed was not the point. Of course, I responded with the fact that I actually use the Paint program on occasion.

Then we got the truth, the person thought the book was overpriced for having such bad sigils. In another words, you can charge an arm and a leg for a book with beautiful, professional drawn sigils, even if it is little more than a paper weight...but heanven forbid you actually charge a high price for a book that works with ugly amateur artwork in it. I suspect the person was a muggle and not a magician.

Therefore, I have to warn people that I do all my own artwork. And it is ugly artwork (I failed high school art), just one step above stick figures. My sigils are ugly and badly drawn. My diagrams are ugly and badly drawn. My godform drawings are ugly and badly drawn. I think that you get the idea.

So be warned that my books do not contain professional drawn artwork. Though it should be noted that I have accepted money for doing artwork, therefore by Olympic standards, I am a professional artist...just not a very good one.

Are posts about the Freemasons coming?

Freemasonry meets the RC Society

Tonight, I was posting back and forth with someone on Facebook. They are doing a bit of research on Freemasonry and world history. I wish them luck on that topic---it is far outside of my expertise. Nevertheless, I find myself with the urge to write something about the Freemasons.

Now, my opinion about the Freemasons is based not on rumor; it is based on first hand experience of knowing Freemasons. I think everyone inside of the esoteric lodge system knows at least one Freemason---it is an occuptional hazard if you are a member of a group that has lodge meetings.

Before anyone asks---no, I am not a Freemason.

I have mixed feelingss about the Freemasons, especially when it comes to the esoteric Orders. Which is probably better than the opinions they have of me---I tend exhibit signs of adult ADHD, and I have no truck with people who are merely interested in collecting more Degrees and Grades. I also have an opinion about how much the Freemasons have to say about what goes on in the esoteric Orders, and I tend to be loud about that opinion. There is also my wicked witch ethics and beliefs.

These opinions and character flaws do not prevent me from having friends who are Freemasons; they merely prevent me from being a Freemason.

Nevertheless, I have done some study of their Order. Partially, because it is the proto-type for all lodge based systems including Golden Dawn and British Wicca (though some will argue that they are not); and partially because if you are a history student, they are really the only lodge system that you are allowed to study (if you are allowed to study them at all---the couple of papers I have done on them in college, I had to fight to do). Freemasonry to the history student is like Golden Dawn is to the literature student (the only reason you can study Golden Dawn as a literature student is that Yeats was a member).

I also collect the occasional odd bit of literature and gear that comes my way. For instance, the photo for this blog is from my collection---there is a history behind this piece of artwork; some of it personal.

Anyways, I am happening this post worked the bug out of my system because otherwise I will be boring you with other posts about the Freemasons. And no one wants that, including me.