On Radio Silence: Current Projects

So I, uh, kinda dropped off the map for a bit. In the middle of a super-awesome blog project. Oops.

The truth is, the New Year, New You project was a huge success in a lot of ways. Huge enough, at least, that on top of my PhD program, my blogging/twittering/IMing time has pretty consistently given way to more menial tasks. Like eating.

Since I *really* don't want to spend hours writing a gigantic post that nobody will bother reading, here's a quick recap of my successes since Valentines Day:

• Passed all of my first-year pharmacy courses with flying colors.
• Secured a position as a tutor of incoming first-year students for two classes (Drug Mechanics and Biological Sciences Integrated).
• Joined a crazy group of wizards to found an online Mastermind group. Great advice and kinship all around.
• Heavily beefed up my home apothecary in preparation for some of the super-awesome projects listed below.
• Landed a summer internship that will allow me to fund said projects.
• Fucked up a lot of craft-work and learned a lot of good crafting techniques that will make said projects spectacular instead of mediocre.
• Found a crazy sleep schedule that actually allows me to both dream and function normally.
• Lost a significant amount of weight in preparation for my summer exercise routine.
• Somehow actually got a bit of "fun" reading done.

In retrospect, that doesn't seem like a very "magical" list, but I assure you, there was plenty of tweaking of life circumstances to get there. And now that I've had a few days to recover from the rigor of school, I finally have the time and motivation to start of some of my back-burner, "heavy magic" projects:

• Creating a sprayable liquid wax solution that will evaporate to leave a hard, solid wax product behind, to be used to apply consecrated waxes to delicate surfaces.
• This project is actually already done, but the simple technique is so useful that it needs to be blogged so others can use it. I will not disappoint.

• Creating Bardon's "compound fluid condenser" true to the original text, complete with real gold solution and ingredients from the ass-end of the earth.
• I have 90% of the components I need ready to go, barring one or two seasonal items. Creation will be complex, and have my own pseudo-alchemical flair to it, but the entire process will be blogged with lots of pretty pictures. Small amounts of product may be for sale if and only if I manage to create a superior magical product.

• Creating a magic mirror by direct and careful flame-on-glass lampblacking.
• Both of the above projects are entirely devoted to making sure this one comes out spectacular. I've got the technique down pat, and am currently on the hunt for the perfect piece of glass to use. Again, pretty pictures.

This is only a small fraction of what I'm working on, but they're the biggest and most overdue projects. Now that I finally have time to blog again, I'm sure you'll be hearing all about these minor things as ADD inspires.

It's good to be back in the Lab again. Ora et labora.

On Cleaning, Migrating Compulsions, and Role Reversals [NYNY]

Those of you who have been here for any amount of time will remember I learned my lesson about keeping up with magical housework in what I'm dubbing The Spider Plague of 2011. Well, mostly. Kind of.

(tl;dr Feel free to skip to the magical/NYNY bit here.)

Example: Approximately 300 metric fucktons of grade-A fail.

I've actually been good about keeping up with regular (although not at all thorough or formal) cleansings since moving to my new mountain home. At least, there hasn't been the need for another spiritual Hiroshima, and the overtly large jar of GTFO potion lies safely tucked away in a back corner of my spiritual supplies drawer. Add to this the fact that I gave up a metric fuck-ton (that's an SI standard, that is) of possessions (read: useless clutter) in my interstate move, and finally having a real dresser with an appropriate number of drawers, and I've actually been keeping things pretty clean on the physical plane as well. Well, mostly. Kind of.

Never thought I'd be happy to
no longer have a desk.

You see, my problem has always been papers, tchotchkes, and dust. Having kicked the paper habit, the dust actually gets cleaned, and the tchotchkes have all found more permanent homes or been discarded. But it seems that all the "clutter" (in the nebulous sense) has somehow migrated outward... just beyond the bubble of personal space that is my room, chaos reigns. Well, mostly. Kind of.

It starts with the mail. Now, I've never lived with someone that gets as much mail (most of it legitimate) as my roommate. Maybe it's her refusal to do anything business-related online, but I'd never seen a larger-than-average mailbox stuffed to the brim every day until I moved here. What most people don't realize is, this masses of mail this large collapse and condense into smaller, but I'm convinced sentient (and evil) clusters, which somehow invade the entire house like rodents. Every surface outside my bubble is eventually affected, which causes enough dirt and dust to build up that by the time it all gets sorted properly (into a legit full-size filing cabinet), cleaning all the house surfaces is a multi-day job. I'm really not trying to make my roommate sound like a slob, it's honestly just a volume issue. It is rather entertaining, though, to see an issue I once had (albeit with school papers) reflected outwardly like this; if nothing else, it solidifies the advantage of the "do it now" principle I've been trying to adopt, in that these torturous cleaning sessions could be mostly avoided if there were a daily read/file/shred routine.

So that's where I left that.

It ends (thankfully there are only two items on this list, windbag that I am) with my car. I'm convinced that useless junk magically (hah) appears there. Nevermind the papers, cords, fast food bags, bits and bobs, and the odd sock, but I recently found an entire suitcase of clothes I didn't know I had which has apparently been living in a dark corner of my trunk for the past 5 months. Seriously? I mean, I know I dress "professionally" most every day and so only go through about a tenth of my wardrobe, but seriously? How did I not notice that?

 Alternatively, I need to work on my
conjuring-sexy-maids-from-the-ether skills.

It's been said time and time again, but even though it seems like your normal, everyday clutter, all this shit really starts to effect you magically in a way that's not really obvious until you actually get around to cleaning it. Not that I don't have excuses at the ready for why I haven't gotten around to taking care of it before now. After all, I've been busy being a full time student, working, setting up a tutoring business, setting up an online magical project/group, beefing up my regular magical practice, etc, etc, et fucking cetera. But hell, in response to reading Deb's post on making way (which the "do it now" principle demands I put into action immediately) I spent an entire afternoon cleaning, only got through about a third of the junk, did no magical cleaning whatsoever, and still I can feel a difference in the place. A small difference, but a good one nonetheless. The quality of my regular work was definitely improved tonight, and I have high hopes for bigger improvements as I tackle the rest of the house over the next few days, finally going over everything with a light misting of heavily diluted (like, three drops in a large spray bottle) GTFO potion. Lesson learned; banish your shit applies to the physical plane as well.

My first weekend home in a month, and I'm spending it cleaning? New me, indeed.

On the "New Year, New You" Experiment

Alright, so in the midst of my reader backlog (620 unread posts? Ye gods I need to go on a blog-diet) I somehow missed out on the awesomeness that is Deb's New Year, New You experiment. I have to admit, when I first read the title I was sort of expecting some kind of fuzzy post about new-year's resolutions, which, by the way, I'm absolutely allergic to. But instead, I found something that really spoke to me in an unexpected way.

You see, I have a problem with inertia. Not like "it's hard to get started" inertia, but "the harder you try, the deeper you sink" inertia, and I've only very recently started unraveling the mechanics behind it. I end up starting things with the best of intentions (like Jason's Strategic Sorcery course, which this blog was supposed to be about), diving in head-first, setting up a daily practice and generally getting along wickedly... until I don't. Maybe I need to leave town for a few days, or I get sick, or one of a million other things happens, and it screws up a very minor aspect of my practice. Like missing a note while playing the piano, the flow of things is interrupted, and one minor incident ripples outward until everything is an absolute mess.

Now, instead of just trying to power through and make the best of my "mistakes", the perfectionist in me racks up an emotional backlog of guilt for the things I was supposed to have done, but didn't get to. Eventually, after a few minor mistakes (or straight-up life circumstances), the emotional weight of feeling like you're somehow "failing" builds up to the point where every aspect of the Work feels like... well, work. It becomes an obligation, something I feel like I should be doing, rather than want to be doing, and this is where the perfectionist teams up with the procrastinator and starts saying things like "Oh, well you can't do X until you do Y, and you can't do Y for whatever bullshit reason, so you might as well just wait on this." Which, of course, starts the guilt-cycle again.

And you know what? Fuck that. I'm sick and tired of living every day of my life feeling like some cosmic mommy-figure is going to jump out and chastise me for all the work I've been putting off. It's like knowing you have a test that you haven't studied for, every goddamn day. And I'm done.

For 2012? Every time I think "I could/should/want-to do that", I'm doing it, no mater what it is, and I'm doing it now rather than later. The perfectionist in me is going to throw an absolute fit, but honestly? I don't care if half of everything I do ends in disaster, because I'll actually be doing something instead of agonizing about what I'm not doing, and that's the real victory. Everything else comes second, but here are some secondary victories that might crop up as side effects:

• Finishing Jason's Strategic Sorcery course
• Getting my tutoring business off the ground
• Keeping up with my pharmacy studies and going into "panic mode" far less often
• Finally getting involved with the local magical community
• Losing the weight I've gained over the past two years
• Reading for fun more often
• Maintaining a sane sleep schedule
• etc, etc, etc.

Light up your incense, boys; it's time to make 2012 your bitch.

On Free Tarot Readings (Limited time only!)

I used tonight's very short Lunar talismanic window to perform a brief blessing on my beautiful Centennial Edition Smith-Waite deck. Now, I've never been much of a card reader, and I'm definitely in need of practice if I'm going to pick up this new skill, so without further ado, I offer the readers of my humble blog a free reading, with a few caveats:

1) I believe in confidentiality, so please don't post your question here. Email me at pallasrenatus at gmail dot com.
2) I have no idea how many requests I'm going to get, so please be patient, I'll answer them all as fast as I can.
3) Remember that general questions get general answers, so if you're expecting a specific answer, please ask a specific question.
4) My choice of spread, since I'm the one who needs practice.

With that said, email away! I'll edit this post and close the offer if I get overwhelmed, but I will answer any question received to the best of my ability.

(Edit: This offer is now closed, and thank you to everyone who participated! I may offer free or very cheap readings again in the future, but I'll have to figure out some sort of system so I don't get bombarded and keep people waiting. You'll see this offered in the sidebar if it ever becomes a reality.)

On Continuing Lunar Awesomeness

As promised, here are my continued notes concerning the effects of the Lunar talisman.

Now, some of you know that I don't often ascribe supernatural causes to mundane events, except when shit gets really crazy and/or obvious. Sometimes, though, things just line up too well to be considered coincidence.

Just after the events of the previous post, I left to visit my family in Florida for a week, and promptly forgot the talisman in my car. While I slept well and had a few vague dreams during that week, nothing out of the ordinary happened. When I returned, however, and moved the talisman back into my bedroom (really the only place I have at the moment to store much of anything), things started to get a little... weird, for lack of a better term.

First and foremost, the vivid dreams re-started almost immediately. Rather than filling themselves with Lunar imagery like my first experience, however, each dream tended to focus on a single person in my life, and the emotional issues I have (or had forgotten about) with them. Imagine a nightly outpouring of "everything I need to say but can't/haven't/didn't"; sometimes this is pleasant (and, ahem, graphic), sometimes painful, but always stark. And, I eventually realized, I always felt better waking up than I did going to sleep, as if some weight had been lifted from me during the night.

During my waking hours, I've noticed I've developed a tendency to indulge in my emotions more fully, to mixed effect. While this allows me to more fully enjoy situations which are already pleasant, I've noticed that unpleasant situations tend to be harder to "brush off", and can taint my mood for much longer than usual... if I don't meditate that day.

I know, I know, I've had the virtues of daily meditation drilled into my mind for years, but for the first time its benefits have become glaringly obvious in my day-to-day life. Not to mention, my free time has been limited because of the naps.

Now if only I had a talisman for waking up with perfect hair...

Oh yeah, the naps. Those of you who know me in real life know that I have never been able to nap before in my life. I wake up feeling absolutely awful... until recently. Since the creation of the talisman, I've been taking naps nearly every day (except for the week I was on vacation), even when I've had a full night of sleep beforehand. I'm not sure if this is the "health" portion of the talisman kicking in (as I wake up feeling wonderful, which is odd in itself), or it simply searching for another opportunity to bombard me with dreams (I'm not complaining).

Now, let me remind you that I'm not working with this talisman at all; it's simply sitting on my dresser in my room. That said, there is another window for Lunar work opening up this Wednesday (mark your calendars) during which I intend to invoke a few select powers and discuss what particular applications it might have in my work. Given that I'm not particularly good at the receptive portion of communication (you know, the part that makes it actual communication and not grandstanding), this will be an interesting experiment in itself, regardless of what I receive.

And on that note, one of the larger lessons I've gotten out of all this is how often my procrastination feeds on my perfectionism... I just don't want to start anything until I can do it "perfectly". Which is bullshit, of course, and this entire ordeal has been an example of the things that can happen if I actually decide to pick up the wand more often. Not to mention, it's reminded me how fun magic can be, and that's a success all on its own.

On Obligatory Dubstep Interludes

Due to an unexpected amount of continued awesomeness, I have a second post about my Lunar talisman in the works, but I probably won't get it done until sometime this weekend.

In other news, since it's rare (in my experience) to come across magic-related Dubstep, I present to you "this is exactly how I'm going to raise my daughter to defend herself":



2:32 may possibly be the most awesome depiction of the evocation of a familiar spirit I've seen in awhile. Not to mention the sheer creepiness of the implication of the last 3 or 4 seconds.

At any rate, enjoy your Friday!

(P.S. Picking the tags for this post was hella amusing, mostly because I had the perfect assortment already lined up from previous posts.)

On Moments of Lucidity: Levannah

What was that about solar egos? Oh, right.

One of the downfalls of having a vivid imagination and a Solar-heavy nature is that you can fall into the trap of believing that you can know what every experience will be like before you have it. Now, this can come in handy when you're trying to pick up a new skill ("Are you sure you've never done this before?") or when you haven't studied for a test ("What do you mean you 'just made it up' and got an A?" Yeah... I'm that asshole), but it also tends to lead to an extraordinarily severe form of spiritual arrogance. Case in point: my recent work constructing a very basic Lunar talisman.

Modern Alchemy.

My decision to construct a Lunar talisman (and I use "construct" in the loosest of terms) came about while I was slammed with schoolwork had lost any semblance of a regular practice, which gave me a bad case of the Magic Itch (there should really be a shampoo for that). Christopher Warnock's wonderful Planetary Magic Program had forecast a wonderfully opportune (and relatively rare) window for Lunar work, so I told the perfectionist in me to fuck off and went ahead with a simple ink-on-paper model. It's a far cry from the nanoparticles-of-planetary-metal-chemically-precipitated-inside-a-sheet-of-vellum models I eventually hope to make (I finally get to put my chemistry degree to use, and I use it for... medieval magic? My professors would be so proud), but perfectionism has prevented me from starting so many projects I count that as a plus.

Now the fun part: expected effects versus observed effects (or: isn't science fun when it doesn't kick your ass?). Honestly, I would have thought that I'd see an increase in the rate and quality of manifestation for my other spells, sort of "locking in" the "mirror" and "foundation" aspects of Levannah while they were favorable. Perhaps it might impart that "empty clarity" feeling I get while staring at the stars, rather than the "stuffy headiness" I generally find myself in. I had forgotten about dreams completely (really? I mean, really? How do you forget about dreams? It's the freakin' Moon!), but if I had remembered, I would have expected an increase in dream recall, but that's about it. I have yet to see if these things will play out in the long run, but what I got the two nights following construction was shocking in the most incredible of ways.

In the days leading up to the consecration, I had become increasingly bitter and ill-tempered for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which included sleeping about two hours a night and spending every waking moment studying for a massive exam, tutoring others for the same exam, or interning at my rotation site (read: "slave labor"). The bitterness lent itself well to a creeping depression, which in turn was automatically combated with even more bitterness and indiscriminately-flung malice (note that I'm talking about internal states here. If nothing else, I was at least was holding together well enough to smile pleasantly at people while plotting to stab their eyeballs out if I had to explain a simple-fucking-concept(TM) over again). Those reading this blog may not know me well enough to know that this is entirely uncharacteristic of me, and that it's pointed to some long-term issues that need clearing up, but I digress.

The first night, about 12 hours after consecrating the talisman, I involuntarily passed out ("Just five minutes...") in an awkward position on my bed, and immediately found myself in what I first thought was an apartment, but upon exploration turned out to be one small room in a large mansion (!). It is hard now, in retrospect, to say what struck me most about the place, because in truth, everything sort of stuck me all at once. I was distinctly disoriented at first, recognizing only one of the tenants personally, while two or more of the others had very distorted and/or disfigured faces (imagine two heavily bearded Irish guys who lost a wicked bar-fight), and I had a fuzzy notion that I was there to scope out the place as a potential new home. As I explored the mansion (the size of which escapes words, but purple marble was a definite theme (!)), several things happened at once. With each room I explored, the other tenants (or potential tenants) grew more feminine, paler, and more ethereal; at the same time, I realized that these people (mostly women) were the epitome of what I look for in both friends and lovers; they had a quality I can only describe as "drawing". The more I talked to each of them, the more I felt as if I was remembering an old friend; a best friend, a soul-mate that I couldn't believe I had forgotten. The rooms themselves seemed to be imbued with the feeling of getting something you didn't even know you wanted (glassed-in conservatory filled with rocking chairs, where all the tenants sit in a circle and read novels together? Not my usual style, but I couldn't have wanted anything more as soon as I sat in "my" chair. Forest in the front yard? Need. It. Now. And so on.), and the more rooms I explored, the more I got to interact with the tenants (I realize now there were 8 of them. Adding myself would have made 9 (!)).

The overall effect was overwhelming. I was home, for the first time ever. The love and peace that immediately flowed between all of the tenants, myself now included, was overwhelming. The sense of belonging was overwhelming. The sense of needing this place was overwhelming. At one point, while all of this was crashing down over me, I ran into the figure of my dad, who approved of my choice, but informed me of the high (monetary) cost of living there. I didn't care; any price was worth it, because nothing could be wrong in this place. That was the last objection that was raised to me, and the rest of the dream dissolved into an overwhelming sense of belonging.

When I first woke up (four hours later), the first thing I noticed was that any negativity had been completely obliterated from my mind. What had taken months to build up into a days-long rage was simply gone, and what's more, it stayed gone. The emotions of the dream lingered for days without any effort on my part to recall them. The second night, I had a (now mostly-forgotten) dream in which I used those emotions in an almost physical manner (imagine "lightworking" fluff) to deal with some long-term personal issues. Despite the week becoming progressively more hellish, I only felt better as it wore on.

In retrospect, I asked for health, safety, the driving off of enemies, and the pouring down of Levannah's blessings, and I got exactly all those things in the most unexpected emotional Roto-Rooter I could have asked for.

Isn't magic great when it's not kicking your ass?