So. What's been going on for the last couple of days? Much, I daresay.
Last Saturday I helped two friends move into their new appartement. I reconciled with Budwieser and Pizza, and my muscles were sore for the next three days. It was great fun, though.
On tuesday night an old friend from Shawinigan-Sud came to visit. We had great fun, on Wed we invited a third to enjoy dinner with us, and I miserably lost a game of Omega Chess to him. Then I re-watched Burn Paris Burn with her. She left on Thursday afternoon.
Thursday evening I had a wonderful pizza dinner with an old satanic friend. Unfortunately, she was ill and the evening had to end early. I had a great time while it lasted, though.
Friday was the getting of the rental car for Sunday. A friend came over for a drink and also so that I could hand her my spare set of keys.
This Saturday during the day I another friend and I went to the Thornhaven ADF Beltaine public ritual. I'm not sure I fit in very well but the people that were there were awesome and very entertaining. The ritual itself was very casual and carefree, though if I was more strict I'd say almost sloppy. Reading from a sheet of paper, improvised chant, planting trees according to cardinal points without really making sure where the cardinal points really were. Saying and doing things without really feeling what was being said and what was being done. To the question, "why not excellence", many answers could be given, though I won't lose myself in conjecture. I did, however, gain a few ideas for future ritualistic events...
The aformentioned friend came over again during the afternoon, and when I got back from Thornhaven, I helped her move a small stove with the rented car. She would be borrowing my couch as she would be coming with me to Victoriaville.
On a more important note, May 5th was also the release date of the latest edition of LE SOLEIL DE MINUIT. http://www.soleildeminuit.magiqc.net Mouahahaa!
Sunday was quite different. I went to Victoriaville for work. It was cute. Not much better to say. I was incredibly tired and was running on 2 gurus just to keep me from falling asleep at the wheel. When we got back, we got ourselves subways and beer. But before we indulged in beer, we had to move a mini-fridge. We watched "V for Vendetta" and soon after I was fast asleep.
Yesterday, work. Today, work. Tomorrow - the intensity continues !
So... what has my life been about these past few weeks? So many, many exciting and wonderous things.
I went to the "Elements of Magic" workshop organised by the Montreal Reclaiming Witchcraft Tradition of Wicca. I learned many important aspects of ecstatic spellcraft, among others. Beautiful people, they were.
I went to the gem show, the bi-annual Gem, Crystal, Mineral and Fossil exposition. Got myself extraordinary stones. Even with time, my fixation for quartz has not ceased.
Very important friends from very far away didst also reunite in the midst of my house, along with the participation of other, no less important friends that still dwell in a reasonable distance. One of the rare "reunions at the summit", which brought insights and wonderful times that I will cherish for many years to come.
An excellent birthday dinner for a friend, which finished in an evening in a night club ... where two ugly faces that I did not want to see, temporarily polluted my happiness.
And, of course, my magical practice within protests and demonstrations. I walk among the protesors and police alike, evading as best I can the violence, when any. I am a witness. I can attest that the police are unjustifiably violent towards innocent kids, who just want to improve society. More importantly, it is an occasion to practice the arte magical, in various ways, most notably: invisibility (or unnoticabililty, to use a better term), the feeling of the crowd's emotion, grounding and centering during moments of panic or potential danger. Self-observation has shown that my instinct is defensive: I mostly magically concentrate on abilities which will aid in fleeing. Obviously, there is more work to be done: especially for those times where I am witnessing something from a safe of concealed spot.
And, finally, tonight I helped move two people - included in the very important friends list - was offered pizza and beer in return, so I am now dehydrated and sore throughout my muscular body.
1) I ordered myself the album "Gospel Haunted" by Those Poor Bastards. It is the single most darkest album I have every listened to. Both in the lyrics and in the singing. The music itself is pretty tortured, too.
2) I watched the movie, "V for Vendetta", and I thought it was excellent. A mixture of "Illuminatus Trilogy", "The Count of Monte Christo", "1984", and "Thundersqueak." I genuinely enjoyed it.
3) My ritual reading of the Book of the Law is now finished. Chapter one listed below, was read facing north. Chapter two was read facing south, with no grand ritual. Only a Star Ruby for banishment at first, and it was read with only the light of a single candle-light. Chapter three was read facing east, the banishing was a modified version of The Stellar Ritual Banishing of the Pentagram (using pythagoran numerology rather than godforms at the quarters). The Tarot card was VII - The Chariot. Quite appropriate, I daresay.
4) On Saturday and Sunday, I have an "Elements of Magic" intensive course in the Reclaiming Tradition of Wicca. Can't wait to see how that goes. Mood: Thingy. Music: Eluveitie
Ok, so let's try to commit some of the last happenings to memory, shall we?
Strange as it may seem, today is day 10 of zero alcohol intake. I genuinely enjoy near-daily drinking ... most of the time. This time it seems that I have had dehydrated myself to the point of having rather odd pains in my kidney areas, my body's water being hogged for alcohol metabolism and leaving too little for other functions. So I decided to give them a break until I feel rather detoxified. At the time being, I still want to give it a bit of time before I want to try another drink again.
I have news from my April Fool's Prank, referenced in a previous entry. Now the executive administration (or whatever the fuck that's called) wants me to send an email of apology to ALL of the people I sent my prank to. Would they want an actual, sincere apology, they'd contact me directly and inform me of a) who they are, that have been wronged, and b) how the hell it is that I wronged them. An apology can only be sincere after open and honest communication, where the wrongful actually expresses where they were wronged. But this kind of fucking crap is nothing more than hiding behind hierarchy (and the power to fire me) to coerce me into performing some hypocritical punitive public embarrasment. It's a petty, dishonourable and cowardly move on their part. I'm torn between hypocrisy and actively telling them to fuck off.
On April 4th, I was in Sherbrooke! And I participated in the excellent public demonstration that started at the UdeS and finished right in front of the permier's office, in protest of the tuition fee hikes. It was nice to see that police officers were not pampered up like the military, batons ready to batter up the teenagers. Also, it was cute to see us lose about 1000 (out of 5000 at the beginning) protesters to the many depaneurs, casse-croutes, and restaurants along the way. The protest was good for business that day. All in all I had fun.
I was happy to spend excellent quality time with two very good friends and their very pleasant cat. We had the chance to exchange on many an interesting subject, such as tarot, lucid dreaming / astral projection, popular expositions of obvious conspiracies, psychedelic music, healthy eating, chess, swords (!), art, and, of course, the Soleil de Minuit, webzine which should come out in three weeks time... Good times indeed!
Coming back has been pretty cool. At work, the advice given to me by a supervisor about what to do with the whole April Fool's thing was almost identical to the advice given to me by a tarot reading a few days earlier.
The 8-9-10 of April is the feast for the reception of the book of the law. So I did what I like to do during those times. A performance of the Star Ruby as a banishing, and then a ritual reading of the first chapter of the book of the law, complete with incense and candles. After the ritual, I tried some scrying, but did not see anything. So instead, I thought I'd try tarot and ask Nuit herself if she had a message to send me via the cards. The tarot reading, using the "kabbalistic tree of life" positioning, gave out something very interesting: Kether: X, the Wheel. Chokhmah: VII of Cups. Binah: The Fool Chesed: V of Disks. Geburah: Ace of Cups. Tiphareth: King of Cups. Netzach: VII of Disks. Hod: VI of Cups. Yesod: II of Wands. Malkuth: IX, THE HERMIT.
I'm wondering whether I should use Crowley's tarot interpretations or my own ... I mean, I am doing magick within his system, so I guess using it completely would be more coherent, right? Then again, maybe not. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, so the story goes...
So I made up a fake document about how the Illuminati were giving instructions on how my workplace was to change its practices to a completely different "Illuminati" set of practices, New World Order and stuff. The document went along the lines of, "you are used to thinking for yourselves, now you must do as you are told. Creativity and imagination are banned." And the like. Actually, it was also a nice appreciative of the company's values. I put up a nice "Illuminati" jpeg found on the net and made a nice PDF with a big, "happy april fools day" at the end. The document ran for two pages in large type, telling us what to do.
I wrote an email with the subject "is this what it has come to?" about how I had found a "hidden drive" and had retrieved only one file before the system crashed on me, but I had to send the file to everyone because its contents were so important.
Then I sent it to a large selection of the staff via email, including many people in the administrative personnel. You know, the CEO and presidents and vice-presidents and stuff.
The people on my organisational level found it hilarious.
But I was told that on the higher levels, i.e. the executive levels, all animosities were suddenly re-ignited, and everybody started suspecting everybody else about hiding information from one another and trying to subvert the company. I was told about issues with the union and issues with people from the western side of the country who think the company is "too open" for their tastes, relations with corporate sponsors, fears that all of this might be out in the social networks ...
Never in my life had I tried so hard not to laugh my pants off in front of my boss.
It was like Eris Discordia - Goddess of chaos and confusion - had thrown a magnificient golden apple right in the high offices on april fool's day.
Glorious.
I'll try not to get myself fired next year.
Mood: Successful troll is successful. Music: Visual Contact
We had the chance to exchange on many an interesting subject, such as tarot, lucid dreaming / astral projection, popular expositions of obvious conspiracies, psychedelic music, healthy eating, chess, swords (!), art, and, of course, the Soleil de Minuit, webzine which should come out in three weeks time... Good times indeed!