Occult Garden Parties

  PreviousBlog / MasterList / NextBlog Hi everyone! Did you miss me? I thought not. But I am not going to let that keep me quiet. So I have missed the last three Tarot Blog Hops. To catch you up on the going-ons on my end—because the events of the last two hundred days or so are still busy bleeding into all aspects of my life at the moment—I missed the Hops, due to the emotional turmoil generated by the response to the first edition of a book on Performing Public Wiccan Ritual and Community Growing, whose ended up being far worse than even I imagined in my darkest “happy little cynic” moments. Basically, the response was the leadership of a local event, a Council that I had been a member of for seven years (and volunteering for even longer), decided that I was guilty of “elevating myself over others” along with charges of disrespect, conflict of interest, and not doing my community service in a proper manner. Those who are familiar to the ego conflicts that occult leadership ...

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...

Previous / MasterList / Next Welcome to the Summer Solistice (Lithna) edition of the Tarot Blog Hop. Part of our prompt for this Tarot Blog Hop was the following question: Does anyone really know what time it is? To which I have to say--of course, Golden Dawn has very specific instructions on how to tell time in Tarot readings. Each and every card has a time period assigned to it, and there are positions in the official Order spreads for those pesky time cards to show up and tell us exactly when things are going to happen. Of course, you have to know how to fill out the chart. . .  I mean--how hard could it be to fill out a chart? Each one of those blank sections in the chart is a Tarot card, arranged around the calendar year. The thirty-six decans cards go in the outer ring (each one assigned to ten degrees of the zodiac--about a ten day period), then the four aces, the court cards, the trumps--all of it goes into the chart. And you know what you get when you fil...

Welcome to the latest edition of the Tarot Blog Hop. Today's topic is "continuing education for Tarot and Oracle readers." Helpful links to navigate the Tarot Blog Hop (repeated at end of post also): Previous Blogger / Master List / Next Blogger Let's talk about continuing education, shall we? Our wrangler for this Tarot Blog Hop, Denver resident Joy Vernon, awhile back had an idea for a Tarot Blog Hop--what us Tarot readers and teachers were doing to further our education. When time came for her turn as wrangler, I reminded her of the topic. . . . . .because I knew that I could get a decent blog post out of the idea. Selfish bastard me, right? Lately, I have been thinking a lot about my past experience as a lodge chief (or is that Order chief?) and occult teacher. Mostly because I am working on expanding my previously published Three Officer Version of the Golden Dawn Neophyte Initiation Ritual by writing fifty thousand words of commentary. "Fifty th...