/:-?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 35 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

... and one of them is a History Professor at IU.  For some reason I can't really explain, that strikes me as very funny.  35, sheesh!  I suppose that's what comes of having a very common first name.  Top o' the world, ma!  :-P

Though, really, there are worse ones....

*squee*

I couldn't resist--I had to share... X-D


Viking Kitties!!!

... to the waters and the wild...

Faerie-Child You are 50% experimental, 45% feral, 63% spiritual, and 10% square!

Well done! You're a faerie-child. You always stand out from the crowd by the way you dress, but unlike the Feral, not by the way you smell (unless it's the smell of sandalwood, jasmine, and ylang ylang). You're not particularly into free love and mind-expanding substances, but you are a free spirit, who believes that there really are magick and miracles in the world. The hippie world needs you because you bring a little magic into their lives. If you believe that opposites attract, you probably find yourself around Ferals. If you are more inclined to enjoy the company of those with similar attitudes, then other Faerie-children, as well as the Alternate, Neopagan, and Mystic are for you. The other categories are Raver, Treehugger, Ful-blown Hippie and of course, the Non-hippie

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 99% on experimental You scored higher than 99% on feral You scored higher than 99% on spiritual You scored higher than 99% on non-hippie

Link: The what kind of hippie are you Test written by pragmaticdreams on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Actually, I kinda like the idea of free love :-? (so long as it's gone about responsibly, o'course.)  And when I do faerie, it tends to be a bit darker...

The Universe Wants to Play

  THE UNIVERSE WANTS TO PLAY. Those who refuse out of dry spiritual greed & choose pure contemplation forfeit their humanity--those who refuse out of dull anguish, those who hesitate, lose their chance at divinity--those who mold themselves blind masks of Ideas & thrash around seeking some proof of their own solidity end by seeing out of dead men's eyes.

Sorcery: the systematic cultivation of enhanced consciousness or non-ordinary awareness & its deployment in the world of deeds & objects to bring about desired results.

The incremental openings of perception gradually banish the false selves, our cacophonous ghosts--the "black magic" of envy & vendetta backfires because Desire cannot be forced. Where our knowledge of beauty harmonizes with the ludus naturae, sorcery begins.

No, not spoon-bending or horoscopy, not the Golden Dawn or make-believe shamanism, astral projection or the Satanic Mass--if it's mumbo jumbo you want go for the real stuff, banking, politics, social science--not that weak blavatskian crap.

Sorcery works at creating around itself a psychic/physical space or openings into a space of untrammeled expression-- the metamorphosis of quotidian place into angelic sphere. This involves the manipulation of symbols (which are also things) & of people (who are also symbolic)--the archetypes supply a vocabulary for this process & therefore are treated as if they were both real & unreal, like words. Imaginal Yoga.

The sorcerer is a Simple Realist: the world is real--but then so must consciousness be real since its effects are so tangible. The dullard finds even wine tasteless but the sorcerer can be intoxicated by the mere sight of water. Quality of perception defines the world of intoxication--but to sustain it & expand it to include others demands activity of a certain kind--sorcery. Sorcery breaks no law of nature because there is no Natural Law, only the spontaneity of natura naturans, the tao. Sorcery violates laws which seek to chain this flow-- priests, kings, hierophants, mystics, scientists & shopkeepers all brand the sorcerer enemy for threatening the power of their charade, the tensile strength of their illusory web.

A poem can act as a spell & vice versa--but sorcery refuses to be a metaphor for mere literature--it insists that symbols must cause events as well as private epiphanies. It is not a critique but a re-making. It rejects all eschatology & metaphysics of removal, all bleary nostalgia & strident futurismo, in favor of a paroxysm or seizure of presence.

Incense & crystal, dagger & sword, wand, robes, rum, cigars, candles, herbs like dried dreams--the virgin boy staring into a bowl of ink--wine & ganja, meat, yantras & gestures-- rituals of pleasure, the garden of houris & sakis--the sorcerer climbs these snakes & ladders to a moment which is fully saturated with its own color, where mountains are mountains & trees are trees, where the body becomes all time, the beloved all space.

From  T. A. Z. by Hakim Bey