Anti-Social Occultist - An... Explaination?

So here goes I guess. A semi occult post. I'm not going to get horribly specific in this blog about a lot of occult things, you want that, head on over to Trystn's Occult Journal. Now why is that? Because, well, for the majority of it, I just don't really think it needs to be talked about with those outside my working group (and even most of them will tell you they understand very little of what we do, 'cause I don't tell them either, really... oops...) It's really a need to know basis, as I don't enjoy having to spend an hour recaping a dozen or so stories to bring someone else up to speed just to have a 5 minute discussion on "This is why this is in this thing you have to say."

And why is this? Because, well, I'm not a teacher of the occult. Not really. Not in the way people would think. I am nowhere near ready in my own personal studies to be a teacher of that sort. I'm not an Elder (OBVIOUSLY.) My working group's members are typically not students of the occult, or if they are, it's not in the same Stream, or even in the same desires. We aren't *technically* a coven/cuveen, and that's fine at this point. I'll be honest, I do select who in my group I tell about rituals that are being planned so as to keep it to those I know I can handle it. And also, since I said we're not technically a coven/cuveen, we're also not "open for new membership" nor are we running a "playtime for the widdle fwuffie dumbdumbs" that seem to stumble across us or get introduced to us (trust me. We had one of those once. It didn't even make it past seeing the ritual in advance when the fwuffie dumbdumb had a meltdown and freaked.)

So basically, when I say I am not a teacher, and we're not really a study group, you wanna learn, you find yourself a good teacher. A good teacher typically will not be very fond of doing distance learning, they will not charge you "tuition" fees, and they shouldn't do other nasty things, like... I dunno... tell you that you MUST have sexual relations with them in order to be part of the group. It's also not a good idea to go for the groups where you pay 50 bagillion million dollars and you get to be a first level red breasted boobie-tit Elder with higher rank than anyone in any other working group (except your own, of course. You wanna be higher ranking there, you're gonna have to pay even more money to be a blue footed ankle biter Elder of a 1.5th level!) You will also be expected to work - you wanna learn, you're gonna work. You're also going to HAVE to expand your boundaries and be prepared for strange new shit to happen. Or strange shit that happened before, to happen again, but more intense. And probably more frequently.

The other reaons I don't usually talk Craft are because, well, for the majority of people in the world, no one reeeaaally understands the other's Stream. You can get pretty close, and you can learn stuff, but at the same time, you're never gonna know it all without going through it yourself. And really, in this area, the closest person with a Stream like what I'm studying, lives approximately 4000 miles away. And I'm a special case, and that's all you really need to know. But it ties in with that whole not enjoying recaping fifty billion things the person won't actually grasp in a similar fashion without a similar background to be looking at the story. It's also not that easy to make other people notice that they might just actually have to change their mindset a bit to see what you're trying to say, although some people get it, while others don't... that whole "Okay, just suppose for an instant that X actually is Y, and it then connects to Z in such a way you get a whole new letter called ZZX!" thing

The issue also includes the fwuffie dumbdumbs that like to stick their fingers in their ears and go "LALALALALALALALALA, Caaaaaaan't heeeeaaaarrrr yooooou! LALALALA! OMG! Opwesshun! Opwesshun! You're trying to force that your religion is better than mine on meeee! WAAAAAH! But wait! I can't hear you, LALALALALALALALA!!" during what was intended to be an intellegent conversation. Of course, if you can't hear me, how can you know I'm possibly trying to do that...? Oh wait, I'm not, and you're just a moron. Oh, and secondly, there IS a difference between Religion and Faith, and I'm not following a religion! But you are. But then again, you're not listening so this point is moot and all we've really achieved is showing your inner cry baby spoiled brat toddler of an inner child, and I have (not so)strange desires to aim a rocket launcher at your head and say "Hasta la vista, baby" in a bad German accent while I depress the trigger. I also love it when they demand proof for something, and upon being given said proof, they go "I do not want regurgitated opinions! I want my own!" Oh yes. Because links to different books online are toootally opinions. Especially when trying to show "So and so copied the idea from so and so, who wrote it A HUNDRED YEARS BEFORE THAT."

I also just LOVE the people I call "Collectors." You know those people on FB who you've never spoken to in ANY form (ie, they're a friend of a friend on FB, and they were a friend of that person's friend, etc etc etc on and on and on until you find a real life friendship that spawned others, but you've never spoken to this person at all on message boards, or in group discussions online, on friends' statuses or anything) and this person you've never spoken to, friends you. Never says anything to you, but they friend you. And then they proceed to friend all your friends with potential occult ties. It's like we're figurine dolls or something - "Witch Streams of the World - Collect the whole set!" And then the person is on your F-list foooreeever, and never saying anything. But they want you to fan every fucking witchy page, or be involved in every little witchy application. Or the ones who just seem to do it for shameless promotion of their pagan business. It's just kind of like "Hmmm... Really. Have you read my profile? I live halfway around the world from you, I'm a Dressmaking and Design student who has been sewing since I was able to hold a plastic needle without injuring myself, I'm also artsy and crafty... I do everything you do, and in some cases, I do it A LOT better..." I also love the people who come along going "I am/have done _____! Fawn over me and fall at my feet!" It's just like "OMG, SRSLY?!?! I'm in AWE! ...Oh, wait, no... that's just my brain shutting down as it melts from the wafting fwuffie dumbdumb idiocy..."

On the other hand, the reason I don't reeaaaally talk to a lot of the non-fwuffie dumbdumb occultists is because, well, compared to a lot of them, I'm basically a baby in swaddling, as a good friend and mentor once said. I don't mind listening, but I know one sided conversations get very... unencouraging after a while. I will listen, and hopefully learn, but at the same time, when I have no clue what they mean because I haven't read that book, or experienced something, or just had no general clue that even existed, it makes for a very slow, one sided conversation. I also don't really enjoying not being able to hold my own, or feeling like I'm bothering someone, or the constant "Oooh, so and so talked about that, and they said *insert basic regurgitation here*" And sometime regurgitation isn't bad, but when it always seems to be regurgitation because I have no freaking clue, it makes me feel dumb, and that I'm coming across as dumb. And that is not really what I want. That is not a good learning environment. I try to not mindlessly regurgitate, I try to have my own thoughts and opinions on it, but I hate the fact it's possibly coming across as complete mindless regurgitation.

Aaanyways, I think this is a long enough rant/explaination as to why I don't really enjoy talking about the occult/why I don't do a lot of it. But I also really don't have a clue what to post really... Any topic suggestions...? I may also bug my mentor and be like "Haaaalp.... is bored, want to write, give me essay topic...!" (Yes, it's true. After high school I am soo totally stuck on writing essays and only essays... blargh. One day I will get my creative back! lol)

SO! Happy Yule, and GET OFF MY LAWN! (Or comment, I like those... usually.)

Ahhh Relief...

So Tuesday was my mom's luncheon, and in total I had 12 adult sized hats knitted, 3 kids sized ones, a scarf I knitted a while back, and a pair of tiny child sized store bought mitts. Apparently one of the ladies asked if I needed more yarn - my mother politely declined lol. Hopefully this has inspired some of the ladies to try a bit harder/do a bit more - Mom says some of them show up with 2 pairs of mitts from the dollar store and think they've saved the world (and it's not like spending more than $2 would hurt them, if you know what I mean...) I'm thinking that when I get bored I'll just knit some more of these hats and stockpile them for next year.... I may very well need more yarn after all lol.

The storm from last week seems to have cleared a bit. But that is good. I freaked, I know I did, and it didn't end well on a few fronts, but those have been understood and repaired (I hope...) And after the storm, the answer seems rather obvious. I've missed horses a lot. In the past week or two I have watched like every single horse movie on Youtube (which is A LOT.)

Tomorrow/later today I'm hoping mom will be well enough to go shopping and to the post office (the pizza we had for supper isn't agreeing with her, nor is it agreeing with dad. Must have been the meat - I'm not feeling too bad, and I had a veggie pizza tonight, so it must have been the meat.) I have 6 packages to mail off. Yay Christmas/Yule!

And since I'm going to the post office, that means my quilt is DONE!! YAAAY! It has some boo-boos, but I don't care. It adds character. Not that it doesn't have that already. It's also fiesty and fights back when boxed...as evidenced by the sheer amount of tape holding the box closed lol. And now photos to finish! (Remember to click for bigger images, photobucket wasn't cooperating so I actually had to upload these ones to Blogspot)

Quilt front, features water, land, sky, and a Tree of Life/World Tree with oghams. The sky is quilted with 4 pointed star designs, and the water is quilted with swirls and bubbles. The green edges just have a straight line border design.


Quilt back. The designs don't really show up on the backing in this photo.

Rough Week

It all went BOOM today. Been stirring since about Tuesday, after the tour, in which I found out I'm not eligible to apply to university until at least 2011. And if I do apply and get in, it's going to take me an extra year or two to complete the course. Joy. Don't have that kinda time, or the cash. Sooo here's hoping I didn't completely shoot down my chances for getting back into the local college.

That may sound good - but it's not. Not really. Mainly because I have no idea what I want to do with my life. I can't imagine doing any one career/job for my whole life.

I thought I was getting better, but the hacking cough is still hanging around, as is the runny nose, and the sore throat has returned, and it seems to be toying with the idea of going after my ear too. Fuuuuck. I don't think bawling my eyes out is helping either, but who knows.

Fuck, at the rate I've been going this week, I fucked up pretty much every aspect of my life. I have no life really. I'm alive, but that's not a life. Thought I was managing to work through shit, but nope. Still there, rearing it's ugly head and causing everything to go BOOM, and crumble and collapse.

Everything I touch turns to shit.

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Hat Knitting Update

In the 11 (now 12, technically) days I've been knitting to make hats for my mom's ladies luncheon, I have 10 teen/adult hats, 3 child's hats, we scrounged up a scarf I knitted a while back. This brings the day count to 11 and the hat/scarves to 14. We also found an infant/young child sized pair of mitts we'd bought that don't fit my neices, so the total items to go so far is 15.

Let's see how this turns to shit now...

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Amendment: Okay, so, right now, even my pillow is betraying me or telling me to cheer up - I bawled my eyes out and the tear stains made a smiley face. A.J. is inhabiting my pillow... EEK! lol.

Hopefully, I am done crying. I'm hoping I am - this is wreaking havoc on my throat *sigh* I'm kind of letting myself cry if I want to though - getting it out of my system and then hopefully think rationally soon. I need some better form of catharsis/or outlet in general. I cry and everyone calls me emo. Yeah, that's right, I make a comment ebout my crying kind of being like bleeding out the poison, and I get called emo. I'm never using a metaphor or a simile again! (which will be horribly boring, and won't last long, but oh well!) Besides, if I was emo, it wouldn't be bleeding out the poison, it'd be CRYING BIG TEARS OF BLOOD AND THAT IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT!! And there'd be lots of messy eyeliner and cutting! (And yes, I'm aware I made wishing for death comments at one point today, but we all know if I wanted to kill myself I wouldn't sit around talking about it!) And yes Darien, I know this doesn't help my not being emo argument. But I'm not trying to blame any of this on anyone. It happens. It kind of feels like being bucked off a horse and trampled on at the moment, but it happens. Therefore, I am not emo!

And this wasn't meant to turn into a rant about emo-ness... but it does make me seem horribly bi-polar... but anyways. Here's hoping that I'm done and moving on at any rate... And I really need to stop randomly attacking Trystn during these fits. It's not nice, and he doesn't like it... and it really doesn't make me happy either. Sorry Trystn. Of course I apologize to him on the blog...which he never reads... brillliant... Anyways, I'm going to bed now.

Anecdote

Once upon a time I wrote a love letter. And then another day I burned it. It had never mattered what I wanted, or what I felt, no matter what he said.
The End.


Le Voile - Sulamith Wulfing

Stress Stress Stress and More Stress

It's that time of year again. Or still. Something like that. Although most of my Christmas shopping is done, so it doesn't matter there lol.

My hat goal is changing, as mom's luncheon is about 10-15 days earlier than I expected it to be - it's on Dec. 1st. I'm still going to knit as much as I can, and we've also raided some of my older knitting for scarves and unfinished pieces to be taken apart for yarn because I plenty of those from when I was starting to knit. So far though, since my last post on Wednesday the 18th, I've knitted 5.5 hats (the .5 is the one I'm working on right now) and we've got one scarf (haven't raided the other finished projects, and I knitted a lot of scarves to be given away, or they didn't get finished so we disassembled them.) My yarn collection is shrinking, and in some cases I wonder about actually using the yarn for this project because I don't know how men (since the items are going to a men's mission) would react to the colour of the yarn - i.e. dark purple, or more "girlie" colours. That could just be me being a worrywort, but just because they are in need of the items doesn't mean they will enjoy wearing an item, and I mean, I don't want the icky nasty people-who-are-the-scum-of-the-earth-and-don't-deserve-to-be-called-people to beat someone up because they're wearing some girly hat I knitted because it was all the shelter had and they needed it. I would hope that wouldn't happen, but recently there's been a bit of a jump in hate crimes, and my brain thinks too much and I would hate to be part of the reason someone got beat up or something. But as I said, not that that will happen.

I got a university tour confirmed for Tuesday. Hopefully I get over this cold by then, or else it could suck a lot. I've been rethinking thanatology, but until I get in there and find out who I can talk to (which means most of my questions won't be answered Tuesday, but that's okay because they use student tour guides, and they may at least be able to point me in the right direction) and find out what my career options are afterwards, or if I need to do like... psychology AND thanatology or what.

Of course with my second guessing myself - which happens even more when I'm sick and feeling crappy - comes people's true opinions. Like I really shouldn't go into it because my mood won't improve because my brain hasn't had enough time. To be honest, I've kind of always been like this. Although having 45 people die in 4 years is rather rough, but sometimes that's just how it goes. It takes time to get through, but unfortunately, it doesn't "go away." And when you have a lot of people dropping dead at once, everything kind of gets supressed. The reason I chose thanatology was half as therapy, and half because people come to me for advice and for help. Often times this is related to death. My mom thinks it's a good idea because I am pretty much already doing it. I say I'm doing it because I'm tired of all the whining grieving idiots who get stuck in the "I refuse to let go!" and "I must be a selfish brat for the rest of my life!" stages. And I should know. I was there/am there. I have dealt with family members who are/were there. I think the main reason I don't want to go through with it is because I'm just doubting myself and my own abilities to do it, and there's so little information on it that I can find that I don't know exactly what will be required of me. I don't want to spend $30,000 getting a degree I can't use because I have to do another degree first/after. I can't afford that. Fuck, I can't even afford the $30,000 to get a thanatology degree. I'm going to sell my soul for it pretty much. But I shall wait and see who I can talk to about it etc. I will look into and apply for scholarships...at least that doesn't have to be done within a month or less, that can be done later, once I've applied and been accepted.

Anyways, my sick muddled brain has lost train of thought so I'm going to watch more horsie movies on Youtube and knit while I blow through forest after forest of kleenexes.

Hats, Lots of Hats

So my goal for the end of November and beginning part of December is to knit as many hats as I can. One a day, hopefully.

My mother is part of their church's ladies group. And Every Christmas they get together and have lunch. They used to do a Secret Santa type thing where everyone brought in a small gift and the numbers were matched up, or some such. Then they decided to change that and now they bring in bags of hats, mittens/gloves, scarves etc and they donate them to the Men's Mission, or another charity similar to it.

My dad, having seen all of my knitting for Christmas/Yule presents, and also being forced into being a pattern dummy for sizing for the things I changed from a ladies pattern to a mens and wanted to ensure a fit, suggested that since I was knitting them for something to do (Wrong, I was knitting for Christmas gifts!) that I knit up a bunch for my mom to take to the luncheon for her contribution to the charities.

Well, today I asked mom if she wanted me to do that and she said sure. No wonder why, she then handed me a massive bag of yarn and said "Knock yourself out." We're talking something size of a garbage here folks. Some of it I wouldn't knit hats for guys out of (like the super fuzzy bright purple stuff), but most of it will work well. So, the goal now is to knit one hat a day basically. Each one takes me a few hours.

The pattern I use is this one here, just a very simple ribbed hat.
http://www.bevscountrycottage.com/hatnmitts.html

And another plus side to this - it gets the yarn out of the house for us since we probably wouldn't use most of it (yay impulse buys...) and it goes to a good cause :-)

I think I have about a month until the Christmas luncheon... so I should be able to get 20-30 hats done. I think I shall set a numerical goal at 25. A bit less than a month, but since I don't know exactly when the luncheon is, that works, and it gives me a couple days grace to rest my hands/wrists, or for the days when I just don't have time/energy/health or whatever to knit.

So, total count so far - 1 of 25

We Remember

WARNING: Contains touching images. Maybe not ones that will touch you in a nice way like puppies and kittens. But they will be posted, and I cannot hide them behind a cut like on LiveJournal. All the photos below were taken by myself and cannot be reposted anywhere without my written consent. Some of these photos are photos I took of other photos, and in those cases, I will say so, and all rights etc belong to the person who originally took it (but the War Museum allows you to take photos in their exhibits, so I thought I would share for those who won't be going there - which is most of you who read this lol)


National War Memorial in Ottawa, ON, Canada.


Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Ottawa, ON, Canada


Soldiers standing around an inukshuk (The traditional meaning of the inukshuk is "Someone was here" or "You are on the right path.") Photo taken in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, ON, Canada


Crosses in a WWI cemetary in Europe.... crosses, row on row..... Photo is in a scrapbook in the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, ON


Another Canadian cemetary in Europe from WWI. Photo is part of a slideshow/info on a computer at the War Museum in Ottawa. The angle was not the best :-/


Burial mound on a battlefield in WWI. Photo also part of a slideshow/info on a computer at the War Museum in Ottawa.


Bodies on the battlefield in WWI. Photo also part of slideshow/info on a computer at the War Museum.


The famous poem, In Flanders Fields, on the wall of the Memorial Chamber in the Center Block of the Parlaiment Buildings on Parlaiment Hill in Ottawa, ON, Canada.

Do you remember?