Thelema

It's been awhile since I wrote here, and so many things have happened that I'm hard pressed to write about all of it. My husband has experienced some serious health issues this summer that has tested us in every way. Our stress level is through the roof. It has fundamentally changed our relationship; sometimes I feel more like a nurse than a wife or a woman. We've lost so much, but we strive to hang onto some shred of who we want to be.

I've taken solace in study when I have the time, and have come to some revelations about myself as a pagan.  I'm not even sure I'm technically a real pagan anymore. I guess it all started when I started hanging around the aecletic tarot website. In the discussion of various tarot decks I started to realize that Crowley's Thoth tarot had some appeal. I was fascinated by the tie-ins to the Kabbalah, the I Ching, geomancy, confucianism, and other arcane beliefs about which I knew very little. It seemed to me to be an all-encompassing tarot, finding the commonalities among all these varied systems. So I got a deck, and also a copy of Crowley's Book of Thoth, which details the cards. That set me into reading more of Crowley's work. As I began to use the Thoth tarot, it was apparent at once that the readings were right on the mark, more so than with any other tarot I've used.  I came to see Crowley as a genius, who knew so much about so many different religions and mystic ideas. Somewhere along the line I read about Thelema, a religion based on his Book of the Law, the only guiding principle of which is "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be the Whole of the Law. Love is the Law, Love Under Will."  I managed to run across a basic book on Thelema at, of all places, the Boise Public Library book sale room.  It not only spoke to me, it was me. At this point in my life, it is who I am.

I don't want to use this space to educate the reader about Thelema. Go look it up yourself, and learn something. What I like about it is the pure simplicity of it, foremost. Do what thou wilt. Period. Of course that it a loaded statement; doing what one "wilts" is fraught with land mines and responsibility. You have to consider what you do and its consequences. I might "will" to wish someone dead, but I know of course that I can't be the instrument of that action because society's punishment will thwart my true will in the bigger picture.  In other words, you can't go off half-cocked about one aspect of your "will" and sacrifice freedom and the true will's essence. As much as I dislike playing by society's rules (and I DO detest them with every fiber of my being), I have no choice if I wish to live as a free person (free as in not incarcerated or in serious debt).  I play by the rules only to the extent that is absolutely necessary. I will never let my mind and my thoughts be ordered by some government or religion.

Even in Thelema, as much as it appeals to me, I've found aspects that I can't abide. The formality of the rituals, for one. I fully understand their importance and WHY they are performed with such anal attention to detail. I also understand that much of it derives from the Golden Dawn and its rituals, because Crowley was part of that for some time.  The rituals of Thelema are not unique to Thelema.  I am big on doing what feels right to me, not following a ritual written by someone else, or doing a ritual in the same format every time. I feel a real antipathy toward any rules in my spiritual belief and practice.  I guess that's why I never made a very good Christian. I was insulted by the Ten Commandments; the very term "commandment" pisses me off. No one "commands" me to do anything. I am not a child. I make my own decisions and choices, and I live with the consequences. THAT is the entire problem with rules in religion.  Rules exist so that people don't have to think about the ethics of their belief. The rules are there to keep you from thinking.

In Thelema and the way I practice(d) paganism, ethics are individual and subjective. I determine what is right, not some book, some preacher, priest, etc. I don't need a clergyperson to be an intermediary between me and my gods. That's a form of babysitting, and a way of telling the lay person that they are not sophisticated enough to commune with god(s).  All that complicated theology crap is just bullshit. It does not have to be complicated.

Anyway, I do embrace Thelemic ideas, and I will call myself a Thelemite just for labeling purposes.  However, it's led me to reconsider the term "witch." My husband will still use the term witch for himself, but mainly thinks of himself as a magician. I'm leaning more toward this descriptive for myself as well. Magician to me conjures up (heh-heh) the idea of moving, bending, directing energy.  Witch has way too many other connotations and can be too easily misleading. Hell, I'm not even sure I can call myself a Pagan anymore, either. Thelemites, while they work with and invoke gods, are really more atheistic than anything else. It's western mysticism with an atheistic twinge. I'm not even sure "atheist" is the right word, either. In Thelema, we consider ourselves our own 'god.' "Every man and every woman is a star." I don't think atheists consider themselves 'gods' because they don't believe in god.

Odd dream

This morning I had a strange dream - strange because it makes me think that I need to do a tarot reading to get some clarification. In the dream, I was with my husband and apparently we had just left a restaurant. It was almost as if we had been looking for Petunia (his ex) there, or had possibly thought she might be there. We were in the truck, and he was driving. He backed up out of the parking space, and the rear end of the truck was close to one of the windows of the restaurant. The back-up lights lit up enough that I could see inside the restaurant, and there was Petunia with her friend, Dan Blocker's Chin (DBC). It seems we had seen DBC when we were inside, but now Petunia was there. She was sort of bending over a table, probably attending to her toadler, Special Ed. I told the husband to stop and look, she was in the restaurant. So he saw her, too, and we re-parked and went inside. I don't know where my husband went, but in the next "scene," I was standing at a high counter near the cash register, and Petunia was a few feet away from me, sort of half-turned. There was a mirror or glass on my left side (she was to my right), and when I looked in the glass I could see that she kept looking at me, as if she wanted to get a good look at me or something. It amused me because she was pretending to ignore me. So I moved down toward her and asked her what she wanted to say to me. I was certain that she wanted to say something. Of course, she denied that she wanted to talk to me. I asked her 2 or 3 times, and told her I'd seen her reflection in the mirror looking at me, and what the hell did she want to say? Naturally, because it was a dream, she never said anything, and that's when I woke up.

So now I'm convinced that she has something she wants to say to me, and it's probably not anything nice. Still, it's intriguing that it should come through to me in a dream. I'm going to do a tarot reading today and see if I can get any inclination of what she's up to. The fucking bitch.

Shaking off the demon

For those who have been reading, of whom I doubt there are many, I have a bit of an update on the woman known as Diana. Diana is an ex-friend who can't seem to understand that I want nothing to do with her, and is still apparently obsessing about me and my husband. I haven't checked, but I think the 90 day block on her calling/texting me has expired, so out of curiosity I'm leaving her unblocked just to see if she tries contacting me yet again. 

Our mutual friend, Lugh, e-mailed me the other day and wants to get together with me and my husband for coffee sometime soon. He filled me in on what's been going on with him, and also with Diana and her little goddess group. Back when I was part of it, we brought our husbands/significant others into the group as "guardians" of the circle. The day we performed the ritual, my husband was accompanied by his patron god, the Zoroastrian demon (of sorts), Ahriman. Several of us knew that Ahriman was there; I could sense him before my husband even entered the circle. He actually behaved himself, but Diana freaked out and after that ritual, she railed on and on about Ahriman disrupting her, and how she was going to command him to do this and that.

As if a demon takes orders from a run-of-the-mill witch.

So Lugh told me that Diana and her little friends did a ritual to formally "dismiss" the circle guardians and relieve them of any obligation to the goddess group. Now, I can only think of two reasons she would have bothered to do this. Either she thinks my husband has been doing some magickal fucking around with her or the group, or she thinks that by releasing my husband, it will get rid of Ahriman.  On the first point, my husband hasn't given a moment's thought to her or that group since Diana and I had our falling out; he's had too many health problems and other issues to care. On the second point, which I believe is the most likely, it's amusing that she would think that she could get rid of Ahriman so easily. At the time, it surprised my husband that he took an interest in Diana, because he's generally pretty selective about with whom he interacts.  He doesn't waste his time showing himself to just anyone. The fact that he was around Diana even after that ritual shows that he has found her to be a source of amusement/interest. He came into the circle via my husband, but he is indeed a separate entity. And releasing my husband from service would not apply to Ahriman. He does what he does; he is a god. She would be awfully simple to think that she could get rid of him so easily. I suspect he's been hanging around bothering her. Well, she's undoubtedly discovered by now that he's still around. I think he's glommed onto her because she actually could be a powerful witch if she would get over the fear of embracing the so-called darkness. She needs to go into that abyss and face her fears; it will make her stronger and no doubt happier. She's a bit (okay, a LOT) neurotic.

Perhaps when we see Lugh I will learn the reason that she felt it necessary to do this ritual, and if Ahriman really has been messing with her. I rather like the thought, but then I'm perverse like that.

The Thing that Wouldn't Die

I've blogged a lot about my former friend Diana and her drama, mainly, on this site, but I don't believe I have mentioned my husband's ex-girlfriend, whom we'll call Petunia. Petunia is in the same witch-wannabe group wherein I met Diana, though they never liked each other. The irony of that whole deal is that I didn't even know Petunia was in the group when I joined it. I even told her that, but I doubt if she believed it.

See, the thing is, Petunia and I have a long history and it's all dramatic and absurd. She admitted to me long ago that she's still in love with my husband and that he was the love of her life. She got me kicked off a website because she bitched to the site owner that it was breaking her heart to see me there. Perhaps a bit (okay, a lot) vindictively, I began a campaign of destroying her, and, yes, I'll admit there was some overkill involved. This happened more than five years ago; I tracked down all of her internet activity and discovered all sorts of embarrassing things that she didn't want anyone to know about, especially her parents. She whined about being stalked while I reminded her that she put all that shit online, not me, and I hadn't done anything illegal looking it up. I'm not a hacker. I just know how to use search terms to find information.

Anyway, that's all in the past. Petunia got married about 4 years ago and supposedly was "over" my husband. She even had a kid, at about age 35; her last chance to "be" someone by being someone's Mom. Not by being anything herself. She and the hubby got divorced a little over a year ago. That was her second failed marriage, and this time she was pushing 40 with a little brat in tow. Oh, and she's a fat cow on top of it. You know, I'm not svelte by any means, but I at least try to clean myself and look neat and wear some makeup from time to time. She looks like she picked up clothes off the floor and put them on. Nasty.

So the husband and I were part of this witch wannabe group for awhile until it just got too ridiculous for us, and we could no longer pretend that there was anything remotely authentically witchy about it. It's basically a bunch of fat, middle-aged women flitting about in fairy costumes pretending to be magical. It's more new-age claptrap than anything else. They all fall to their knees at the reciting of the sacred rede, and think that their group leader's shit don't stink, when she really doesn't know anything about anything. She's just a good manipulator. Oh, and she claims to be a shaman, too *barf*

We've been out of that silly group for a year or so now, and haven't seen hide nor hair of Petunia. We've had a lot of issues with my husband's health and have had our own lives to attend to. Frankly I couldn't care less if the bitch falls off the earth. I was keeping up with her antics in my own sneaky ways. I knew that she started the occupational therapy training program at Boise State. And I knew that a few months after beginning it, she dropped out. Husband thinks it's because she decided it was too haaaaarrrd for her, or that she realized it wasn't "her." She's basically spent her life trying to find what "her" is, and failing miserably at it. Instead of finding herself, she gloms onto what someone else is doing, thinking that it must be right for her, too, but always goes away disenchanted because she finds out it's more work than she's willing to put into it. I think she believes that when she finds out what is "her," she'll just be able to do it with no effort at all. If she has to work at anything, then it's not "her," because she shouldn't have to work if it's "meant to be." Apparently she's not heard of the idea that anything worth knowing or doing takes work and commitment. She just wants it all to be easy.

Anyway, I hadn't thought about her for a long time, nor had I thought of that pathetic group of loser witch wannabes, either. We did see our friend Lugh on Saturday, and we talked a little bit about that group, but we're all so far removed from it by now that we mostly just shake our heads at their stupidity and move on.

Yesterday morning I was getting ready for work, just out of the shower putting on lotion and thinking about my husband, who is getting over a cold. I was hoping he'd stop having that bad cough at night so he could sleep better. All of a sudden the name of the leader of the witch wannabe group flashes into my head. In the midst of my thoughts that had nothing to do with her, witches, magic, or anything remotely connected. I knew that it had to mean something, but I wasn't sure what. The only thing I could imagine was that she was trying to fuck with us in some way, but seeing as we hadn't seen her or talked to her or even about her other than for a couple of minutes the previous Saturday, I could see NO reason for her to suddenly want to attack us. I thought about it at work and could come up with no motive, yet I knew that something had to be afoot.

Finally this morning I had a chance to get out my tarot cards and ask what was going on. And the answer was a real shock to me. It isn't this "leader" person really at all - she is being used in some way by . . . Petunia. The cards were very clear on that point. Now, Petunia has got to be still obsessing over my husband, and she knows that long ago he did a spell to bind her to him forever. He did this after he dumped her ass, because he wanted her to never be able to forget him and how she fucked up the best thing she ever had, and he wanted to make her life a living hell. He told her that he'd done this, of course she pooh-poohed it. However, it seems apparent that she is actively seeking to break this binding, no doubt because she's unable to move past it, and is blaming it for all her failures in life. And I think she has either talked to this group leader about it, or has actually asked her to intervene on her behalf.

I told my husband about my reading, and he agreed it sounds logical. Oh, and my last question was what should I do about it, and I pulled two cards which clearly told me that 1)being with my husband and us loving each other was killing her 2)there is nothing I should or need to do; my life is moving along and that fact is also a bane to her. So I feel no compunction to curse her ass, or to even do much in the way of protection for myself. She hates me and fears me, but her focus is on breaking her ties with my husband.

So today we happened to be doing some work for a church group in a town on the other side of where she lives, and on our way home we drove past the home of some of her friends. I shit you not: we turned down the street and there was HER car, pulling into their driveway and parking in the carport beside their house. Now, what are the chances of timing like that? We are wondering if she is living with these friends again, because she had been living with them right after the divorce. We don't know, but we can find out pretty easily.

Now, my husband has already told her repeatedly how she can break the bonds between them, and that is to sit and talk to him face to face. He has some things he wants to tell her. But she refuses to do so, because she knows she isn't going to like what he says, and also being with him will only drive the knife in her gut (a phrase she used to describe how she felt knowing that I was with him) deeper. He is considering doing a "come to me" spell so that they will run into each other somewhere so that he can talk to her. He really wants to get some things out in the open with her and end some of her illusions.

This seeming "coincidence" of being on the same street at the same time has happened with her before. Not the exact same incident, but there have been other times when we have randomly been driving and there she was, in front of us, or behind us (both have happened). It's as if the universe is causing this proximity to occur, and if my husband were to do a spell, I believe it would have natural impetus. I guess we'll see if he decides to do it or not.

Anyway, I find it highly amusing that she is, more than seven years after he dumped her, still obsessing over my husband and letting it control her life. She is one of the most pathetic, unfocused losers I've ever run across. Some people have to have drama or they'll die, I guess. I'll keep this blog updated if there are any new developments.

a little mystery

So I was trolling craigslist, as I am wont to do sometimes. Just looking for anything interesting locally that might appeal to me in some way. Rants and raves were the usual illiterate ramblings of histrionic losers, and there was nothing interesting in the "free" stuff. I prowled a few other categories and one of the headings, all in caps, was the name of someone I know. I clicked on it. The posting was also all in caps, no doubt to convey to the reader the urgency of this matter. Someone is looking for this person I know, wants a current phone number and/or address. Naturally they don't say what for, or who they are. I toy with the idea of responding, and I did. I logged into one of my little-used e-mail accounts that isn't connected to anything traceable to me, and sent the person a message. I told them to give me their name, purpose for wanting to contact the person I know, and a phone number. I said I would give it to him and let him decide if he wanted to call them.

I have little doubt that this is going to piss off the person who placed the ad, but too damn bad. I'm not just going to give out someone's address and phone number without knowing what this person wants with them. For all I know, this is some crazed stalker wanting to track down the person I know and shoot him. More likely, it's someone who thinks they are owed money, or want something back. I just have a bad feeling about it from that perspective; I don't think it's an old friend looking to get in touch. The all-caps, and the vagueness of the post lead me to think that it has something to do with money or even perhaps an old grudge or "score" to settle.

So we'll see if I get a response. I honestly don't think that the person I know is going to be that hard to find. I don't think he's hiding out. It's possible that the person looking for him is from out of the area, because otherwise I think they could find him. But we'll see if anything comes of it. I love a little mystery.

Contact

If you've ready my previous posts you're familiar with the person I call Diana, with whom I had a falling out a few months ago. She has tried a couple of ways to contact me, remind me she's around, in some sick effort to either revive our friendship or just fuck with me. At heart, I think she's sorry and would like for us to be friends again. However, I'm much better off without her drama and histrionics.

So last Sunday we were on our way home from bowling when I got a text message. Imagine my surprise when it was from Diana! Especially because I blocked her from calling or texting me. She made some lame remark about having had dreams about me, and asked how my husband was. I was mostly pissed off that her text message got to me, and determined to find out how she got past the block. I talked with my husband and asked him if he thought I should reply or not, and he said it was up to me. She pretty much derided him, too, when all this shit went down, so I feel she's offended both of us beyond any sort of reconciliation.

I ended up texting her back that she didn't have any reason to know anything about us. This was about 10:30 that night. Now, back when we were friends, she was rarely up past 9:30, always tired and went to bed early. She had to have been waiting for me to respond to her text, because as soon as I sent it, she wrote back. She said she meant no harm, wished us well, blah blah. I didn't send any more messages. I went on the phone company website to find out what happened to the block I'd put on her number, and found that blocks are only good for 90 days, and it had been about a month past that. So I blocked her again. I'll have to remember to go back and re-block her before this happens again.

You know, I'm really past any anger or feeling like I want to fuck with her magickally. The very thought of her just makes me feel weary, from her personal drama and lies. She's got so many violations, from theft to eviction to collection agencies . . I really don't want to get sucked into that. She's got a personality disorder of some kind, she somehow thinks the law shouldn't apply to her because her violations are not one-time things that she learns from. She's been charged repeatedly with things, so the ability to learn from your mistakes is missing in her. I just can't spend any more time with someone who is basically out of touch with the real world.

I have to admit I have little fantasies about running into her at the grocery store or someplace, but that's only so that I can ignore her if she speaks to me (and I'm almost positive she would). I'm not out to hurt anyone's feelings, but being clueless is not my problem. I've made it abundantly clear that I want nothing to do with her. Perhaps having me snub her in person would go a ways to getting that idea through her thick skull.

My dirty little hobby

This has nothing to do with being a witch, but I have a somewhat prurient interest in serial killers. I've read lots of books, watched movies, and basically learned a lot about their sick motivations, methods, and how they got caught. I'm no expert, obviously, but I think I know a thing or two about serial killers . . .

So there is going to be a program tomorrow night on TV about the Long Island serial killer, a case that broke about a year ago. I want to DVR it and watch on my day off, and further formulate my own "profile" of the killer. My motivation for doing this is because I've been doing some online research about the case, and ran across an organization that supposedly does criminal profiles for police departments. I read their profile of this killer and found it to be ludicrous, and I wonder what kind of kooks are running this "organization."

They assert that, because apparently these women responded to craigslist ads for prostitutes, that he is exceptionally tech savvy, and that he even uses some sort of sophisticated voice-altering system. WTF? Um hello. Anyone can use craigslist. Millions of people use craigslist. You don't need anything more than a computer and an e-mail address to use it. You can even do it from a phone. Please. It takes no particular tech savvy to place an ad on craigslist. Absurd.

Their profile also asserts that he is on some sort of "mission" to cleanse the world of whores, and that's why he targets prostitutes. Orly? The guy would have to be some kind of religious nut, wouldn't he, if this was his motivation? Or even if it was based on something in his past, would he be able to hide this intense vitriol in his mundane life? Wouldn't he have talked about it, voiced his disgust to other people if he felt so strongly about it? And we aren't talking about the south. A religious nut would go unnoticed down there, because religious nuts are a dime a dozen. But this is New York. A religious fanatic would stand out. And just a guy blathering about his hatred of prostitutes would definitely be memorable to witnesses. And no one's come forward to say anyone has talked like this, or voiced any sort of ill wishes towards prostitutes in such a hateful way.

My theories on the craigslist and prostitute aspects?

I think he uses craigslist because it's an easy way to find women who will meet him somewhere, and keeps him from having to troll known prostitution areas where he might be remembered. It keeps people from seeing him and his vehicle and being able to identify him. It's as simple as that.

Prostitutes as victims? Well, he obviously hates women for some reason. He had an abusive mother or other woman in his life. She either physically abused him, humiliated him, or mentally abused him, or perhaps all three. He felt his manhood demeaned by her. The fact that he targets prostitutes is simple: they are the easiest women to lure, and the ones who will be missed later than non-prostitutes. Many have few or tenuous ties to family/friends who might report them missing. How many of the Long Island victims are on missing persons lists? And how many were reported missing soon after they were abducted? How do you think this guy is getting away with this so cleanly?

Their profile claims he's some sort of genius when it comes to eluding police and disposing of bodies. Orly again? I suspect he's of above average intelligence (most, but not all, serial killers are). He's dismembered the bodies and left parts in areas up to 30 miles apart. That shows he's calculating. He's plotting to do this, so he knows right from wrong, though he has no conscience. He knows what society believes is right and wrong, and how he might get caught. So where is he doing the dismembering, and how is he cutting the bodies up? I don't know enough details of the case to know if there's evidence of dismemberment at any of the dump sites or not. If there is, he's pretty ballsy, doing it out on the beach where someone could drive by. This beach is supposedly isolated and doesn't get a lot of traffic, so perhaps he would have had time to do it. I don't know. BUT if he's not doing it at the dump site, he's taking them somewhere to do it. Does he live nearby? Is he taking them somewhere far away and them bringing them back to dump them? I'm sure the police know this, and I'm hoping it will be addressed in the TV special. I'm going to do more online research to see if I can find details.

They claim he is a law enforcement buff and known for his collecting and interest in such. Where do they get this? Is there something at the crime scenes that leads them to think so? I've not read anything of the sort. Are the assuming that because he's breaking the law he must therefore be obsessed with law enforcement? The only way I think he's "obsessed" is in trying not to get caught. And I also think the dismemberment of bodies is twofold: to confuse police and to delay identification of the bodies. I don't think it has anything to do with any law enforcement fixation at all. That seems ridiculous to me.

I do believe he keeps up with the news stories; he wants to know what police know, and if they have any real evidence that might lead them to him. He has talked to NO ONE about what he's done. He may be married or single, but I don't think he's a freaky loner that everyone thinks is a weirdo. I think he lives a normal-appearing life, probably has a job and friends. And I think he gets off on knowing that he's fooled all these people into thinking he's a good guy when he's committed all these heinous crimes. I don't (unlike their profile) believe he's a show-off and a braggart in general. I think he's careful not to let anything slip that might give anyone any suspicion about him whatsoever. In my gut, I don't believe he's one of those serial killers who really wants to be caught. In fact, I'm not convinced that any of them really want to be caught. Even though they know that what they are doing is wrong in the eyes of society, they are compelled to do it and don't want to stop.

I'm next going to write about the missing people in northern Nevada, but I'm off to do some research first. TTFN.