Coincidence or road sign?

Is that a skunk on Big Ape's head?!

One of the quirks that many occultists seem to pick up is the reading of coincidences as road signs. Or maybe it is just me that has picked up this particular habit. Now, I am not as bad as some of the people who have taken the Oath of the Abyss--but I do have my moments.

My latest example of "Is it just a coincidence? Or is it a road sign?" is a skunk on the head.

As many of my friends know, my wife points out that my hair is thinning. My response tends to be that I am going to buy myself a Shatner. My wife is not sure if I am being serious or not...we will just have to see, won't we?

Nevertheless, the joke carries further out than that. Recently, I have been engaged in drawing some ape and monkey pictures for a pagan/Wiccan friendly children book series.

(Yes, I am confused about how I qualified for this one exactly--I think that it is because I seemed to have a little spare time and some colored pencils...or at least, that is the theory today.)

Now, I decided that Big Ape, the father of Little Ape (the school bully), was going to be suffering from Ape Pattern Baldness and be covering it up with a skunk. I did not inform my co-creator of this decision--it is a surprise...like most of my ideas for the artwork.

So where does the coincidence kick in?

Well, I started to read a book that I plan on reviewing, God Attacks by J. R. Kiefer. In one of the opening pages of the book, he mentions a picture where one of the subjects appears to have a skunk on his head.

Yes, it is probably a coincidence and nothing more serious than that. At least, it was not as shocking as the time, I wrote about a character speaking with the voice of a cricket, and then read a translation of Homer's Iliad only to discover that the old men talk with the voices of crickets.

[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.]

Debating what model scale to use

Vault of the Adepts Sun Wall color study 2000 MDE.

When I did my color study of the coloring of the Vault of the Adepts back in 2000, I kicked around making a scale model of the Vault of the Adepts. Blame it on my days of playing table top wargames (remember FASA?) & Dungeons and Dragons. Or on the fact that I used to build model kits when I was a kid.

Periodically, I revisit the idea. A couple of weeks ago (or was it a month or two?), someone shared a link to a paper model (insert tab Y into slot Y) of the Rosicrucian Vault as described in some of the older RC material. And once again, I got the urge to make a scale model of the Golden Dawn version (RC et AC) of the Vault.

I would not be the first one to do so. A few years ago, I know that someone did one for a Golden Dawn conference (I have seen some of the pictures of the model). And let's be honest, I won't be the last person to do so.

Given my strong urge to do so, I think that I am going to add it to my list of things to do once the semester is over. I am going to need something to break up the paying work (yes, more dating site adcopy). And I can always use the model for studying the movements of the Adept rituals.

So the big question becomes what scale to use. Should I do it index card size? Or maybe 1:12 scale (an inch to a foot)? Or maybe 1:24 (half an inch to a foot)?

Both the index card size and the 1:12 scales would be okay for just myself. But the 1:24 would be better if I decide to assemble it into a small ebook to share with the rest of the universe.

Decisions, decisions.