So tomorrow I shall be rising early and with a short stop enroute to help a friend out transporting stock for their stall I shall be pootling off to PaganCon in Preston.

It’s not a big convention and in truth, I had last year decided that I would not be going again as they have stopped weekend camping and I nearly always end up being the designated driver, which in and of itself is fine until you have to try and load enebriated passengers into the car when your tired, knackered and hoping that there is half a chance you will get home before the offie shuts so you can buy a nice bottle of wine.

The biggest reason for going is twofold,  several friends this year are either doing talks or running workshops and I figure you should support your friends in their endeavours and also because Maxine Sanders is speaking.

Now I am not a Wiccan, nor ever likely to be, but I do think it is important to go and listen to somebody who is effectively first generation of the modern witchcraft movement. It was the same reason I spent a weekend doing a Marian Green course. These guys are our elders and for most of us, there doing it with the coffee mug and the t-shirt whilst we were still charging around in the playground at school.

I shall report back after the event I am sure.

I actually didn’t know what to call this post, I am not 100% sure that the title I have given is right even now, but it is the closest I could get. This post is not a finished peice of work my any stretch of the imagination, it is the start of something, but I am not sure what. But I imagine I will be re-examining it again a number of times over the next few months as my observations grow.

So where to start, hmm well I am a person with a lot of moles, many of these are not a result of sun damage but have been with me all my life, yesterday I started the process of having the larger, more troublesome ones removed. The one that was taken away yesterday I have had since I was only a toddler, my earliest memory of it is over 30 years old, when I caught it on clothing for the first time, I was about 3 and I can still clearly recall the pain and discomfort of catching it.

Anyway it’s gone now, although I haven’t seen the results it’s still under a dressing, I know it’s gone, a little part of me has changed. I know that it is going to take a while for me not to be freaked out when I look down at my side and it is no longer there. The realisation of it’s abscence really got me thinking about how I view myself and how that perception of myself may affect me. I realised that when I visualise myself whilst working it really does include all my spots, marks and blemishes. Even if the visualisation includes clothing I can mentally strip away that clothing and what is underneath is a pretty accurate representation of me!

So there I was this morning trying to make my “other” me and failing miserably to create a “me” without said mole, when a conversation I had with a friend sprang to mind. They are a very talented tattoo artist, who has a large following of practitioners from a number of paths who utilise their exceptional skills in the persuit of spiritual and magickal tattoo’s.

Apparently it isn’t uncommon for people to have minor personality changes after they have their tattoo, and after some discussion it was agreed that the reason for this was that the act of tattooing physically and mentally changed your wiring on the subtle. Initially I had a bit of issue with this, the tattoo I underwent as a form of personal initiation seemed to do nothing of the sort, it was easy for me to include it in my other “me” almost as if it had always been there. And then I realised that was the point, it was something I had worked towards, I was meant to have it, not a flight of fancy, but the cilmination of a hard worked for magickal operation.

But it really got me thinking, if having something “added” can tweak you subtly then surely it goes without saying that having something removed must also have a similar effect? This is not something I had considered before, all the rumination I have done over the years regarding the removal of these little parts of me have been done on the mundane, the purely down to earth here and now practical. I have no idea what the subtle implications of losing it will be, but I am pretty sure even so early on that there are going to be some. Which leads me to think that I may have to work on my personal perception of my magickal self before I make the appointment to have the next one taken away.

A few weeks ago one of my elders took me to one side for a “talk”. Apparently they were concerned that I was isolating myself too much, becoming to much of a hermit. Apparently they felt that this wasn’t in my best interests and asked that I consider perhaps interacting on the scene just a little bit more.

Now there was a caveat to this, interacting didn’t mean that I had to socialise with any old nut case out there, the idea being was that I find sane, sensible like minded folks with which to interact. So a chance invitation came my way via a good aquaintance (who actually does fall into the sane and sensible category) to accompany them to a pub moot in the next town tonight.

Now normally I would have shied away in horror, but there is actually no reason to make an excuse not to go, I have more than enough money in my pocket, I’ve not been out in over a month, the significant other is willing to babysit, and public transport runs almost door to door right into the night. So I figured what the heck, even if the folks there are completely barking, and it wouldn’t surprise me, pagan moots can be very colorful places, I will have spent time with my sane and sensible good aquaintance.

And you never know I might meet some really nice people too!

Long story most of the details of which I will not go into so as to protect the not so innocent. But basically some 6 months ago I had a very near scrape with an ”interesting” personality that is more than just a little well known for causing witch-wars. The way I dealt with it then was to take them at their word, when they signed off the flurry of e-mails I recieved over a number of days, which stated things like “This will be the last you hear from me”, “I will never contact you again” and other such affirmations; and didn’t respond. Eventually they did stop, and a few weeks later the furore died down.

So imagine my surprise when a few weeks ago, said person contacted me again, professing to want closure, professing to want to move on, professing to want to be able to clear the air so that the “moving on” process could be done with a lack of animosity. Yeah I know call me a bloody idiot, after weeks of thinking about it, reading and re-reading I figured that perhaps they were being genuine and an adult discourse that would enable this could ensue. Fool, fool, fool, fool!

It took me weeks to respond, writing and rewriting my responses, even getting a non involved and objective 3rd party to vet what I was saying. Now don’t get me wrong, what I had to say was harsh, but it was fair, neutrally worded and non confrontational. I knew I wasn’t going to make a friend from what I said, but that wasn’t what it was about, it was about disscussing like adults, clearing the air and moving on right? WRONG!

So in future if anybody ever contacts me in a similar manner I shall remember the words of my husband, when last night I showed him the angry and defensive emails that had dropped into my box during the day:

“they didn’t want a rational conversation that facilitated closure, they wanted to have the last word and can’t stomach the fact that you have replied and particularly in a manner that meant a few home truths were spoken”

So the lesson for today, is don’t EVER poke the nutters with a pointy stick, even when they are doing a very good job of pretending to be a rational human being.

Well we’ve done the math, and I mean really done it. We reckon we can reduce our outgoings by a third without really feeling the pinch too much. So the decision is made, I am taking a few months off work, this is crunch time, the book it appears is going to be written whether I want it to be or not. I suddenly feel like a huge weight is off my shoulders.

Ah well the PTB’s work in mysterious ways.

It has now been suggested to me several times that I ought to commit the last 5 years worth of research and work to print, the idea has been growing on me exponentially over the last month or so; initially I was very resistant to the idea as I really wasn’t sure that I had the level of knowledge or experience to justify putting my work out to the general pagan/magical populace.

I suppose the final clincher was running the workshop the other weekend, there I was sat in a room telling people about my research, how I used the research to create ritual in which I could better gain a working relationship with the entity in question, how you could extrapolate other syncretic areas of folklore, mythology and the occult to create a tangible working system based around said entity, guiding them in pathworkings and leading them in a ritual based upon the materials I had given them to study.

And for the first time ever, I realised, I did actually have something worthwhile to give to others. A something that has, with a few notable exceptions been mostly neglected in the genre of popular occultism, in fact I can only think of two books in the entire marketplace that actually address this entity within a magical context, most of the extant texts are the result of a Phd thesis or other academically focussed work.

So here I am with an outline of what I want to cover and how, and I am pondering two questions and I am sure somebody on wordpress will have the answers if they read this. Firstly what is the average word-count required for a manuscript; I believe 50,000 is considered a novella - so would 100,000 be a good ball park figure? Secondly how far is too far when expounding personal inverifiable gnosis, can you put just about anything down as long as you make it VERY clear that what you are writing is gnosis and cannot neccessairly be backed up with cold hard fact?

Oh which leads me to thirdly, when writing a “magical” book what is a good balance between academic and practical; especially considering that there is a woefully inadequate amount of decent academic techniques employed in many magical/pagan pbulications?

Thanks in advance to anybody that see this and can perhaps give me some sage words of wisdom.

Okay slightly bizarre ramblings, but something crossed my mind today whilst chatting to a friend.

I have for best part of a year been slowley dipping my toe into the Enochiana, it happened by accident initially; I had for best of two year been “visited” by a little girl, she often “showed” to me (and for me it is internal, I do not have the sight like some, who have actually seen her dancing around me) at times of high magical stress and/or development.

Eventually I was asked if I knew her name, Doh! slap head moment, it had never occured to me to ask, she was just my little girl. Anyway suitably humbled, I asked and all I got was that song by the 90’s band Ash, “The Girl from Mars”. I eventually asked a friend who has 30+ years of experience in Enochian evocation, and showed them the picture of my little girl I had drawn. They laughed.

Anyway suffice to say I have been slowley developing my contact with others from that realm. I am a scientist my heart so mostly I have gone out of my way to know as little as possible to perform the operation, after all how can you be empirical if you are influenced by others “supposed” experiences. I do rely very heavily on my friend who has been there and done that to ensure that I don’t go screwing myself up, they totally appreciate what I am doing though, so whilst they support me they never give me more advise/information than I need to complete an operation I am compelled to do. I suppose you could call them a mentor, they give me enough work to ensure that I could get into trouble, but not enough that I couldn’t get out of it.

Lol there I go rambling again, so, where was I. Oh yes, so I want to complete a series of scrying sessions, so I was talking to my friend; before I have always scryed and made notes after, or had a dictaphone. This time they suggested that I would need a proper scribe. And this got me thinking.

I have had friends who have employed scribes, totally impartial, unexperienced but willing scribes. And then the poor scribes lives have fallen apart. So it got me wondering how far does the higher realms emmanate when performing such operations? How do you look after your scribe after, and as I said who scribes for the scribe?

Phew what a busy couple of weeks, the workshop went surprisingly well. The path workings in particular threw up some really interesting things. I’ve never been one to hold too much store by all this internal mumbo jumbo, but discussing with the group the imagery that they saw, one thing really struck me. It is possible to access something subliminal.

With the exception of one person, somebody who I have worked with in the past and know the extent of both their practical and academic knowledge, nobody in the group had even a passing understanding of the concept of planetary influences, symbolism or hours. So to approach a deity from this angle was an entirely new concept for them.

One person in particular seemed to tune in particularly well to this way of working and was confident enough to take me to one side after and discuss some of what they had experienced. Without fail the images, symbols, feelings and experiences they gained from the pathworking correlated directly to the particular planetary aspect that the pathworking had been written for.

It’s actually inspired me to look even more closely into this area of work, I am half toying with the idea of setting up a small informal group, perhaps one evening a month who would like to examine the phenomena of pathworking in closer detail. Perhaps taking it in turns to write and lead a working, experiementing with music, sound, smells, symbolism etc.

You know you would have thought that I would have learnt by now, but apparently I haven’t. You know that old adage “To Know, To Will, To Dare and To Stay Silent” well yet again, I’ve had a right good slapping by the powers that be for forgetting the last part, I’m pretty good at the Know, Will, Dare bit; but sometimes, less and less now adays I admit, I forget the last one.

Part of that is my desire to see all that is good and trustworthy in people, which of course is totally flawed. Whilst most people do have these traits, often in abundance, each and every person has a private agaenda, and I really don’t care how loudly people try and protest, when that agenda kicks in, no amount of anything will stop them furthering it, which includes (if neccessary) imparting senstive information at the drop of a hat if it is relevant to thier cause.

So what am I talking about, well I spent the weekend with a fellow student, somebody I have known for a good while. I shared something personal and sensitive, next thing I know it’s been reported back to those older and wiser. I do not know what they gained from this trade, and neither do I care, and in the whole scheme of things, who it was reported to was not the end of the world. But it really made me sit up and think about the whole situation. And sadly the conclusion I came to was “Trust no one, after all paranoid magicians live longer”.

I do feel a little let down, but not that much, after all each person has thier own will to follow, and the person in question was just fulfilling thiers, just as I most likely was by unwisely sharing. It did make me wonder about mine though, I really do think that in the very near future I will be branching off on my own at least for a while, it’s time. After all the only person you can truly trust is yourself, the only person who doesn’t have a personal agenda that may conflict with yours is you. Unless your delusional it’s pretty damn hard to lie to yourself for any period of time, and it’s even harder to break your own trust unless again you are a sociopathic muppet.

Anyway, mild melancholy over, in other news, I watched a documentary entitled “Hitler and the Occult” the other night on National Geographic. What a pile of biased, sensationalist, hogwash. It was poorly presented, poorly referenced, with little actual historical or even circumstantial detail to pad it. The narrator did however say “OCCULT” lots of times in a dramatic and sometimes menacing manner, so of course the total lack of substance could be over looked because saying occult lots had to make what little evidence they produced (most of which seemed to infer that publically at least Hilter actually had a decided aversion to anything Occult) seem so much more true, right?

NOT!

It was a waste of 45 minutes of my life, never to be clawed back again, I thoroughly suggest to anybody that might be tempted to watch it on a replay, DONT, go pick your toenails or clean out your ears, or contemplate the color of belly button fluff instead it will be more enlightening and satisfying I assure you.

Today I have an overwhelming urge to write, shame it isn’t focussed on the path workings I am supposed to be creating for the workshop I am running in a few weeks but there you go! But the urge to write is definitely upon me, but I have no real focus for this outlet at the moment. There is of course “stuff” going on in my life, but it nothing I want to share with the world.

Life has been really busy the last few months, it has felt like there is never any time for the family, just to ourselves, we worked out the weekend before last that we have been graced with house guests every weekend since christmas, and I think that might be part of why I have nothing to share, I have noticed that a there is a part of my personality where I get to the point that sharing too much causes me to become very very introverted and anti social. These social occaisions culminated in a day trip to Cumbria with a group of very excellent people who then returned to ours for the rest of the weekend, I love these folks very deeply, but by the end weekend I was absolutely shattered and it manifested itself by some kind of viral infection that kept me bedridden for best part of 3 days. I put my foot down and demanded that this weekend we have a weekend alone, just us three, time for me to claim back some personal space. But wouldn’t you know before I had got home from taking the nipper to gymnastics on saturday morning, we had unxpected visitors.

It finally got to me in the early hours of this morning, when being woken by an ambulance and two fire appliances outside the neighbours house, thier uber galactic caravan (which is parked against the deeds of the properties in the area so I would not rule out arson) went up in smoke.  The entire bloody street was out gawping at these poor peoples misfortune, which it undoubtedly was, as I reckon that van must have been best part of 20 or 30K, it annoyed me, the lack of privacy being displayed by people, and I think that was enough. I took a half day leave today, for personal reasons and have basically been sitting doing bugger all ever since. Yet strangely I feel very unsatisifed.