To quote Mick Fleetwood, "It's been a long time." I'm sorry to have been away for so long, but I've been doing some serious writing. You know, like books and stuff. What got me started on this blogging kick were two things: first, I'd seen the movie "Julie and Julia"; and second, gearing up to being published again. Yes, I've found a new publisher. It's been a hard five years since Peggy Kelly close down FireDrakes' Weyr.. But Kira came to the rescue again by turning me onto her publisher, Crimson Frost for publications, with its very personable CEO Patricia Bates. I sent her three manuscripts, out of which, she accepted one; namely Palulukon.  I'm very excited about this, and basically playing a waiting game until her editor sends me the edited manuscript, on which I have to do my own edits.. I'm confident that it'll be things like substituting a beat for "saids". David Bowie's song "Fame" keeps going on in my head.. But I need to do, my 15 month plan,  to devise new strategies to publicize it. Ms. Bates already knows that I will do whatever interviews she sets up for me, if she does such things.

In the time since I've been away we've lost three of our cats, and acquired another one. Two of the cats Pyewacket, and Charcoal, died. We suspect that they drank anti-freeze. To cats, anti-freeze tastes sweet, but as you might suspect it is a deadly poison, and should not be just unceremoniously dumped in the gutter where cats can get at it. Then Putty Bear ran away because his buddy, Pyewacket had died. One Saturday the three of us were out for a walk in the neighborhood. Len and I went back home, then went out again because Stefan had talk to these guys around the corner from us who had a cat they would give to us. She turned out to be a gray and white tabby whom they named Dolphin. She was very tame and docile. She came right to Len's arms, and he carried her home. We added in a to her name, so that she is now Dolphina.. A couple weeks later, we discovered that she was pregnant, and a few weeks after that she had her litter of three kittens. Two of them were stillborn, and the third lived for a few days, but was smothered when Dolphina lay on it.We began to cast about for a way in which we might get her spayed. Then our opportunity came to get her spayed for nothing. A flyer was taped to our fence, which offered free microchipping, vaccinations, and spaying or neutering of any cats or dogs we might have. So accordingly, Len and I took tell Fina in the carrier to this park where we had her microchipped, vaccinated, and arrangements were made to have her spayed. I had expected a long line, so I took my walker and my book. But I didn't get much reading done because there was only one cat owner ahead of us, and she was almost done. We filled out the paperwork, and she was taken into the SPCA Van where she was given her shots and microchipped. Then we arranged for her to be spayed. We found out that because of our ages, we were eligible for the senior pickup and delivery service. So accordingly the following Friday she was picked up, operated on and returned to what's. I had been through the spaying drill before, so I knew all the precautions and instructions and all that stuff. Dolphina also got an extremely stylish collar and tag. In fact, we're still talking about how stylish, snazzy, and chic, to make her feel good about herself.  I guess that Dolphina was pretty normal when she was living at the house with those men, but now she's extremely funny. She'll walk up to you when you're sitting on the couch, jump up on the couch, and flopped down with her belly showing, signaling that she wants to be scratched. She loves to be scratched on the belly, which is weird for a cat.  She also doesn't believe that the three of us are competent to use the bathroom without supervision. She follows us in there. She also likes to play with balls, or anything that dangles and moves. "If it moves, we must pounce." Cats really don't seem to mind when they are being laughed at. Even though that she can go outside, she doesn't go far. She seems to know which side her bread is buttered on. Today, at two, Len and I will meet one of the managers of the laundromat, who has two kittens to give away. We might be coming home with one. So now we'll have to figure out how to get her spayed as well.

While I'm waiting for Camp NaNoWriMo  to start, I'm working on a story that I tried to write several years ago but couldn't quite imagine how to do so.  It's a fantasy, of course, about the magician Merlin (but I use his original Brythonic name Myrrddin  in the story) how he wakes up after on nearly 1600-year-old nap and comes home to Berkeley with a group of young Pagans. At first, he is bewildered by all the high-tech devices around him, but he soon learns to use them with aplomb. He neutralizes their enemies, the jezoids, who have been hacking their computer systems, and the websites that they frequent for the past several years. One complication is that he starts to age  backwards.  This is because he was born at the wrong end of time, and it's also an homage to the story "The Strange Case of Benjamin Button."

I am selecting my cabin mates for Camp NaNoWriMo. If you are interested in being in my cabin, contact me at rita.trevalyan@gmail.com. I can have up to 11 in my virtual cabin. Don't worry, nobody has to travel anywhere. This is strictly an online cabin. Well, so long until next time. I'll try not to let so much time go by.

Well, it’s been a long time since our last discussion to this group, but Stephen’s been living at his money manager’s house (read girlfriend), and came back in January because she said he was driving her crazy.  So now he’s back to drive Tegwedd and Len crazy.  Len much more than Tegwedd, because she can ignore Stephen, and Len doesn’t seem to be able to.  The putties have been doing their putty things, and that is what this discussion is about.  Pyewacket, our calico, has made Putty Bear, who is almost twice her size, her bitch.  She licks him, bites his neck, and mounts him as though she were a tomcat.  It’s too funny.  Remember the putty mantra:  lick lick lick, bite bite bite, scratch scratch scratch, buzz buzz buzz, hump hump hump, chew chew chew, fart fart fart.

 Pyewacket has a game she plays when she gets called to come in at the end of the day.   She’ll lurk by the door, but when one of us opens the door to let her in, she’ll run away until Tegwedd calls her with her special call, “Pye Pye Pyewacket, Pye Pye Pyewacket, chocolate covered Pyewacket, yum yum yum!” which Charles Hixon came up with decades ago.  Not only that, but she’s taught the other putties to do this too.  Putty Bear really excels at it.  They teach each other these tricks to create chaos in our lives.  Dr. Livingston will cozy up to you, be very sweet and loving, but she’s just preparing to fart.  She likes to spend the night with her Uncle Lenny, get nice and warm so that she’s ready to let one.  If you don’t feed them when they’re ready to eat, they’ll go on an affection strike.  They’ll jump right out of your lap, and scratch your hands if you don’t fork over the wet food pdq. 

We lost Inky a few days before Samhain.  We believe that he was murdered because he was black.  We think it was superstitious Jesoid brats who kill black cats around Halloween for the same reason that they killed black cats during the Burning Times; they think they’re demons or imps.  Those who killed him covered his body tried to cover up their crime by covering him up with fallen leaves.  This was no accident.  Dr. Livingston I. Presume has taken over Len’s computer chair.  She says a couple things in human speech:  yeah and me out.  Tegwedd asked her if she wanted to go outside and she said “Yeah!” clear as day. 

She is still a shoulder putty.  Charcoal has also become a shoulder putty.  Stephen was just being sadistic, and running numbers on Pyewacket’s head when we asked her if she were a shoulder putty.  The truth is that she never has been a shoulder putty.  For those of you who are just now tuning in, a shoulder putty is a putty who perches on your shoulder as you go about your daily business, occasionally adding puttyish comments.

A few months ago, we had the cuteness battle, and Putty Bear came in second after Pyewacket.  It’s his face, you know, so cute and cuddly, like a bear, a teddy bear.  Of course Dr. Livingston is pretty cute too.  And so is Charcoal, in his own way.  Don’t you think it’s just precious the way that a putty will stop right in the middle of a room s/he is walking across and start grooming hirself?  Our house is basically set up for the comfort and convenience of the putties.  They know that they are royalty.  They have thrones.  Pyewacet likes to lie on the satellite box.  We call it “her throne.”  Putty Bear likes Tegwedd’s walker/rollater.  Trouble is Putty Bear also likes the satellite box, probably because it’s warm, and it’s been a cold winter.  Her other perch is Tegwedd’s computer tower, which is probably also warm. Dr. Livingston’s perch is on the end table next to Tegwedd’s side of the sofa. 

When Len and Tegwedd go out on their weekly excursion to Tegwedd’s group at Kaiser, when they yawn, they say which putty gave them the yawn.  They are supper putties because they can give us yawns across town.  We’ll start with Pyewacket, then Dr. Livingston, Putty Bear, and Charcoal.  Just like in “Rape loot pillage burn!” you’ve got to get the order right.  The putties configure themselves in some outlandish positions when they lie down to sleep.  If one such as Charcoal is lying in one of our laps, he will extend his paw in a Nazi salute, “Sieg heil!” and say “This is my human.”  They also get themselves into the Tao symbol (Yin-Yang) and the book ends pose. 

Every day after the morning feeding we let out so that they can go out and terrorize bugs and mice.  Right now Dr. Livingston is doubled around herself, and her tail is swatting the arm of the sofa.  Pyewacket and Putty Bear were having a lick Fest that erupted into putty combat.  They batted at each other for a few minutes then Pyewacket leapt away.  The bromance between Charcoal and Stephen continues.  Charcoal is very doglike and clingy; so clingy in fact, that Stephen often can’t get any work done.  And of course when a putty jumps into the window we sing,

“How much is that putty in the window

The one with the scraggly tail

How much is that putty in the window?

I do hope that putty’s for sale.”

Even though they are all hydrocarbon based life forms, they are silicates (silly cats).  Dr.Livingston will turn onto her back to expose her belly if you start scritching her.  She loves getting her belly scritched and this is a sign of extreme trust of us.  When Len first arrived last year, and saw all the putties in the house, he loved it, and still does.  His favorite, like Tegwedd’s, is Pyewacket, who is the cutest. 

But watch out when your putty lies down with crossed paws in front of hir.  Crossed paws are dangerous.  Stephen likes to have cross ventilation in the house on pleasant days, and was wondering if this were anything like a putty’s crossed paws.  We think that crossed paws is like a secret handshake, the Masonic handshake.  Putties may be a secret society, the FreeMasons, the Illuminati, or the Bilderbergers.  There’s the Putty Illuminati, or the Putty Co-Masons, where they plot world domination.  But as far we’re concerned, putties already rule the world.  They do have some allies among the dogs, such as Sassy, (Walt and Julie’s dog) who was raised with putties, and has many puttylike qualities.

Putties love to be sung to.  You don’t need to have a great voice or even be able to carry a tune, as putties are not critical listeners.  You who have been here from the beginning may know this, but you might not know that they also like to have poetry recited or read to them.  Dr. Livingston’s favorite poem is William Blake’s poem “Tyger tyger burning bright, in the forests of the night.”

The putties also have to check out anything new that comes into the house.  After all, it might be food or putty toys.  Also, anything we do has to be supervised by a putty.  Mere humans can’t get anything done right unless there is a putty supervising.  Do share your putty stories with us.   

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Religion & Me

I just read Aidan Kelly's blogs having to do with his religious background. I’d like to respond by telling all of you about my own early religious experience. Even though I was brought up a Lutheran, and he a Roman Catholic, a lot of the experiences he relates resonate with me very much. Religion-wise, I didn’t have any choices until I was an adult. When I was twelve, and taking confirmation classes, which are pretty much the same as Kelly’s catechism classes, if you take out the denomination-specific stuff. They’re both indoctrination into Christianity, to make sure that we have the important points of the faith firmly in our pliable young minds, so that we can blurt out the points of our faith without thinking. That’s the thing about the cookie-cutter religions; they all place a high importance on orthodoxy of belief. Everyone has to believe the same stuff, and pass it on to others, if they get the chance. And we’re not supposed to try to work it out logically, using scientific evidence or anything like that. We’re just supposed to take it all on faith. But it hit me, here’s this deity that I’ve never seen. I only have the preacher’s word that he exists, and he’s the one source of salvation from something he invented called sin. I later learned that a “sin” in archery means a missed mark. That’s all. If only I’d called a stop to it then and there, and been courageous enough to announce to my parents that I no longer believed in the existence of this old bearded white man on a throne in the sky. That’s always been one of my shortcomings; a lack of courage. I was a Satanist for maybe five or six weeks when I was 27. Then I found a third way to go; Paganism. I was taking a class on the occult at Diablo Valley College, and our instructor told us about a meeting where we could meet some Neo-Pagans. I went. Unfortunately, so did some Christians who claimed “equal time.” Wonder how they’d like it if we started walking into churches claiming “equal time.” They haven’t given us equal time for over 1600 years, why should we give them them equal time? The Pagans left their seats, and went to the side of the library where the door was. I joined them. We introduced ourselves, and generally had a great old time while the jesoids prattled on with their same tired old message that nobody wanted to hear. I joined a Druid Grove, and started going to the Horned Moon meetings of a NROOGD coven. I started with the Sabbat celebrations. The funny thing was that when the Goddess was invoked, I could feel Her in my mind and soul, as I’d never felt the presence of the Christian god. I always felt that I was talking to a big nothing. In April, 1976, I was initiated, and started studying Wicca close up and personal. Since then, what adventures I’ve had! I’ve formed three covens, which unfortunately didn’t get very far, I’ve learned ritual magick, perfected my reading of the Tarot to where I’m writing a book on it with someone, and gotten my 3rd degree in a trad I’d only heard about in the ‘80s. Now I’m in the middle of forming a working online coven.

Wrinting, Magick, and Me

My Paganism and writing life are interwoven. So as I write this, there may be spells in here, or spiritual experiences I want to share. I wrote one story about a woman who was not Pagan. She was an Episcopalian, a social Christian, she goes to church to maintain her social position. There are millions of those. But all the rest of my characters are Pagan or Heathen. I wrote one story called “Yule Yelps” about a Heathen town in northern Minnesota that is plagued with werewolves, or vargs, as the Scandinavians call them.

Last night we were in the Abbott’s Inn Magick School chat room I created, and a lady came in who has a blog on Blogspot which is her Book of Shadows. I’m old school enough that I will always have a hard copy BOS, but I thought I’d take a page from her and come back here, and do a combo blog. Yesterday I also saw a video on Magic[sic] Realm which was the late great Scott Cunningham talking about Herbal Magick, and there were a few recipes which I wanted to copy down. I told my friend Len about it. He wants to get the DVD of it.

I’ve started to make a fifteen hour plan to determine what my plans are for the day. I make it the night before. This is a smaller increment of the five year plan I adopted back in 1985. You see, I grew up during the Cold War, when the Russians and Chinese were our sworn enemies, and the Red scare was on. The Commies were always launching glorious five year plans. I interpreted these plans to mean that during the five year plan they would focus their resources towards a stated goal. I decided to adopt and adapt it for my own needs. I divided it up into smaller increments of time; the five month plan, the five week plan, the fifteen day plan, the five day plan, and the fifteen hour plan. Sometimes I have just a five hour plan. What doesn’t get done today will go on tomorrow’s fifteen hour plan.

I’ve had many teachers over the years of both magick and the Tarot. I’m counting the authors whose books I’ve read as my teachers. The first one was the late great Phillip Emmons Isaac Bonewits. I possess and have read at least three of his books, four if you count his edition of The Druid Chronicles but my favorite will always be Real Magic[sic]. There is Chandria, who taught me Wicca, Rowan Woods who taught me a lot about the Tarot, I also learned from some of my students. There has to be an exchange between the student and teacher of Wicca, or there is exploitation of one another. I learned from Doc.

My friend Len did some online research after an unfortunate experience with a Memorex product, and found that Memorex has a very bad reputation. So I’m telling you here. Do not buy anything made by Memorex. They are made in India, probably in sweat shops, so we should launch an across the board boycott. Do not buy anything made by Memorex. Tell your relatives, tell your friends and neighbors, tell any one you see in a store contemplating the purchase of a Memorex product. Complain to customer service of any store where Memorex is the only brand sold, and demand that they stock and alternate brand. The way to hurt them is in their pocketbooks, and if nobody is buying their products they should inquire why, and then improve their products, or they’ll go out of business. We the ninety-nine percent have tremendous power when we get together, armed by the truth.

Magick is an all consuming force, a little like writing. Any act which causes a change in reality in accordance with one’s True Will is a magickal act. Oberon Zell-Ravenheart changed this to “Any act which causes a change in consciousness is a magickal act.” In psychology, there is a symptom called “magical thinking”, note the lack of a k in magic. Magickal thinking is different, although, subtly. When we who are magick, and know it, do magickal thinking, what we think about just may come true, providing it isn’t too crazy, or is within the bounds of possibility. The dead don’t come back, except as infants, and people don’t age backwards, and cars don’t send us messages, unless we’re on a cellphone, and getting a call from people in that car. But we live in an age of technology, both of hardware; electronics, computers and the like, and software; mind-science, all the techniques the ancients knew, and we are only just rediscovering. Magick exploits little or unknown laws of nature that the uninitiated call “supernatural’ because they have a very limited view of nature. There is nothing supernatural because nature is all inclusive and embracing. It includes all that is on this fertile blue-green planet of ours, and what lies beyond, both in physical space, and in other dimensions, as well as what we have created ourselves. Humankind’s creations must obey the laws of nature.

Belief and emotions are the fuel that magick uses to make our desires form. The sub- and un-conscious (some people say one, others say the other I believe there are both.) are the vessel and the mechanism by which the magick takes place. In Huna (the Hawaiian tradition) the sub- and/or un-conscious is called either the Lower or the Younger Self. Max Freedom Long was a leading exponent of Huna. Scott Cunningham was another. Together they educated those who were open to learning the ways of the ancient Hawaiians, and incorporating them into their personal paths. Long wrote many books on the subject, Cunningham, only one; Hawaiian Spirituality. Max Freedom Long can be researched online, as well as at your friendly local public library. I urge you all to patronize the library, Ben Franklin’s invention, because the top 1% want to do away with our public libraries, just as they want to do away with our public education system, and the postal service. If you have the means, by all means, support the library. Your children and grandchildren will thank you. In Santa Clara County, the branches of the public library system, as well as the buses in the Valley Transit Authority, are marked as Safe Places, places a child can escape to if a predator is pursuing hir. It is my view that public libraries are not obsolete, but are more necessary than ever, especially when more and more young people are home schooled, instead of being sent to schools which may not be understanding about a family’s cultural or spiritual beliefs.

Back to the subconscious or Younger Self. Inside we are all that five year old who wants what it wants, when s/he wants it. What does s/he want? Well, what did you want when you were five years old? Toys, right? Toys and candy, costumes. Well, to do magick all that is really necessary is the mind. As my friend and house mate Stephen Abbott says, “Magic is sleight-of -hand; magick is sleight-of-mind.” The only tool the Witch and/or magician needs is hir mind. All the rest, the altar tools, the sword or athame, the wand, cup, pentacle, censer, candles and candlesticks, the jewelry, robes, and all the other trappings of magick are just toys and costumes to make the Younger Self happy. At pagan gatherings such as Ancient Ways or Pantheacon, rooms such as the huckster or dealer rooms or rows are very well populated with magickal people, cash or credit cards clutched in their hands,eager to purchase toys and trinkets to keep their Younger Selves happy.

The Secret or the Law of Attraction says that the Younger Self will replicate on the earth or material plane what it perceives to be happening already. That’s why the rich get richer and the poor stay poor or get even poorer. The rich have the awareness of being rich, so more money and resources accrue to them. The poor only have the awareness of being poor, so their Younger Selves, believing more poverty is what they want, send them more poverty. I’m familiar with the Law of Attraction because it is in reality the first Law of Sympathetic Magick, or the first law of Hermetics; Like attracts like. There are two other Laws of Sympathetic Magick. Law number two is the Law of Contagion. That is, what once belonged to a person or a thing still has a connection or link to that person or thing. That is where all the prattle about hair and finger- or toenails comes in. We now know this to have scientific merit, in that hair and fingernails contain the DNA signature of the person to whom they once were attached. The entire science of forensics is based upon the 2nd Law. The third Law is the axiom; As above, so below, or the macrocosm equals the microcosm. To give you an idea of what this means, Khemetic (Egyptian) Pagans and Witches put on ritual plays of the Khemetic myths to show the Mighty Ones or their Younger Selves what they need. For example, for a healing, the circle would act out the time that Horus got very ill, and Isis tricked Ra into revealing His true name so that He would give Isis what She needed to heal Horus. This is how theatre started by ritual dramas. I have a theory that is the reason for the ancient saying, “The show must go on.” You see, entertaining the people was secondary to entertaining the Mighty Ones, and if the drama stopped for any reason, They would be displeased.

Thus we see that magick has been with us since the very dawn of our species, forced underground with the coming of the new faith, but slowly re-emerging into the light of the surface, yet there will always be a segment of magick that calls to us from deep in both the Earth and ourselves. What we have to realize is that magick obeys laws, just as all of nature does, for magick is part of nature, just a part of nature that the plodding scientists do not fully understand, and may never understand as long as their minds are closed to the marvelous.