Occult Garden Parties

Ahh—f**k it—the work-in-progress “Hail and Welcome” is going to be what it is going to be. Each and every person who is going to be upset with the book, all those individuals have already kicked me to the curb for the unacceptable shift in my writing voice. I can either wrestle with my muse every inch of the way; or I can give into the demands of my muse and write a book that I enjoyed creating.   

Any book I write about public Wiccan ritual has to include this quote: “ We ask you not to enter in Perfect Love and Perfect Trust because there are people here you do not know, but rather we ask you to enter with an Open Mind, a Willing Heart, and leave your differences at the door. ” –Alia Denny, mother of open Wiccan ritual in Denver, CO [RIP] We miss you Alia.

PreviousBlog / TBH-MasterList / NextBlog Welcome to the Tarot Blog Hop--the exciting game show where crazy Tarot bloggers compete to write entertaining essays connecting Tarot with some randomly selected topic pulled from a hat. Everything you see here is improvised--written mere moments before the Hop went live. Yes, that is right--Everything is made up and the points don't matter. I am not saying that Drew Carey is the Spirit Animal of TBH wranglers . . . but I am not saying that he is not either. Jay, our wrangler for this Tarot Blog Hop gave us the following prompt: Whether you have a ritual for working with your deck(s) Are you superstitious when it comes to letting others touch your deck If you work with clients do you have a routine/ritual prior to a reading Do you read for yourself / the world, if not would you ever seek guidance from them And my response was something along the line of a scream that sounded a little like this--"I have no ritual, no r...

Back in December, I missed the Yule Tarot Blog Hop because I was still dealing with the mental turmoil and drama that I received from "Cos-Neo"* after one of its "Council" members read the first edition of my Public Wiccan Ritual and Pagan Community Building book and told the rest of the Council, her opinion of my book which caused the Council to dog-pile me with a whole bunch of stuff that I was guilty of doing--essentially a nuclear melt-down with people screaming Disrespect, Conflict of Interest, and that I was trying to take over the entire occult community of Denver, Colorado--causing the Council to come up with a trumped-up charge that they had ignored for fifteen months--I performed a public Wiccan ritual while under the influence of medical marijuana, endangering one and all who attended--to force me to resign from an organization and event that I have been involved with for two decades plus. [* Not the real name of the organization which must be kept secr...

For those who are not up-to-date on my latest "burn him at the stake" worthy sin and heresy, I was recently forced to resign from a Wiccan/Pagan Open Ritual Organization that I have been attending for twenty-plus years (volunteering for over a decade--spent seven years as an official administrative member) because I refused to give up my Wiccan Third Degree (as well as Second and First Degrees) and the use of magical rituals when I became an medical marijuana patient. To protect the organization's identity (because They must be Real Witches, thanks to their Community Service time and sensible attitude towards Medical Marijuana and Magick)--I am referring to Them as " Cos-Neo ," for at one point in the month-long drama, I was told by the New Big Giant Head that "We [the Council] have talked about it, and have decided that membership on the Council is about Community Service , and Not Elevating Ourselves Over Others ." The following timeline proves t...

How to tell that you work an office-at-home close-out-the-world 365 days a year artistic job: Overhear people at the grocery store discussing closing early for the holiday, and have absolutely no idea what holiday that people are talking about. It is Catmas--Give me cat treats!

Welcome to the Summer (Lammas) edition of the Tarot Blog Hop. Navigation links for the Hop: Previous blog / MasterList / Next blog The subject for this Tarot Blog Hop is whether or not changing one's name, changes one's vibration enough to change one's destiny. Let's just say that I have been a guinea pig for this theme--given that I am now known more by one of my pen-names (professionally and socially).  Why I had to use a pen-name as a writer When I first become interested in becoming a writer, I studied the careers of the writers who inspired me. Many of them used pen-names--my favorite being Robert Heinlein, who used three besides his own name (Anson MacDonald, Caleb Saunders, and Lyle Monroe). Heinlein used his pseudonyms for branding purposes, to sell stories of lesser merit (at a discount, of course), and to allow himself to sell more material without seemingly flooding the market. Therefore, in my universe, a writer is allowed to use as many pen-names as...

I have been asked these questions more than once, so I am just going to post the answers here for everyone to see.  What is my planned occult book production schedule? What order are the planned books going to be published in? And what is the basic format going to be? Let's start with the last question first, shall we? Planned format of upcoming occult books The planned format is a series of fifty-thousand word books, divided up in five ten-thousand word sections. The style will be the more humorous conversational tone that I have adapted over the last couple of years.* And the focus for the most part (with a couple of exceptions) will be the what one of my critics call "Wiccanifying Golden Dawn"--which should be described more as "borrowing Golden Dawn toys and tools for the use in Wicca."** The series of books (which will be published under the umbrella series name-- Occult Garden Parties ) are going to take the form of ebooks as well as printed books d...

The biggest safeguard of lodge and coven based esoteric traditions is the presence of trusted peers, other human beings, also working the system by your side, who know you personally in real life and can talk some sense into you when you go off the rails. Guess what part of group based traditions and systems get ripped out and tossed off a cliff the most? Yeah, the part where your peers can tell you to your face while in the same room that you have become more delusional than normal. I swear that I am working on this project. Want to see more Flash Reads? Visit my wife's pottery shop: Khari's Wiccan Treasures Offering plate handmade by Khari S.

Service A loaf of bread. That is why I ended up enlisting in the New Egyptian Allied Astronautics and Support Services. A stale loaf of bread. There is a myth that people join the armed services because they are patriotic. Maybe after getting your head stuffed with lessons straight from the Ministry of Doctrine and Enlightenment, if you are a citizen of the Holy American Protectorate; art from the Ministry of Art and Humanity, if you live on one of the Free American Islands; field trips to see the war debris that litters the Ring of Defiance, if you happen to live in the Free City-State of Denver, maybe after that you might be a patriot. Maybe then, you will join for patriotic reasons. That was not me. The closest thing I got to being patriotic was the annual block party celebrating armistice. I like watching fireworks, especially the Catherine Wheels and Thor Hammers. The only thing I like better on Armistice Day is the food. Of course, that was because of my home life. ...