The Pleasure Garden of Shadow by Daniel Schulke... Damn, I want a copy of this book. I've found a few copies, but they're in the States, and the price, although cheap for a second-hand Xoanon book, is still about $200 USD... I've seen copies of the Azoetia go for over $2000 British pounds... *sigh* And me with my Canadian money...
I suppose if I need them they'd come my way. My mother and I have great faith in the Universal Book Dispenser, and that the books you need cross your path when you need to read them (and for a price you can afford). I got Gardner's The Meaning of Witchcraft and Valiente's Witchcraft for Tomorrow and The Rebirth of Witchcraft that way, waking up one morning and knowing that I would find them that day. Heh heh book psychicism. If only it would carry over into the Tarot...
I dragged out my three decks the other day, mostly to maul them: Marco Nizzoli's The Secret Tarots is the only one that reads well for me. I never could get Joseph Vargo's Gothic Tarot to work well. I keep getting distracted by the artwork and naming the people in the illustrations after characters in children's books. The Gilded Tarot is a lot brighter than the other two, but I haven't had much time to use it yet.
Robert Masello's Fallen Angels and Spirits of the Dark is being reprinted in 2012. Does it make me a geek to be excited by that? I think it does. And Doreen Valiente's The Rebirth of Witchcraft is being reprinted too, although I feel divided on this. Making her book available to a larger audience will mean that more people will know about her early years with Gardner, and a bit more about Robert Cochrane's coven (woohoo!), and more knowledge is always a good thing... But it'll lower the market value of my copy... :( Not that I'd sell it, but I like to think I have equity on my bookshelves...
I'm stuck in the middle of Jules Michelet's Satanism and Witchcraft and Margaret Murray's The God of the Witches. Sometimes I feel like they're almost the same book. Who wants to bet that Murray read Michelet? I'm also willing to guess that if I could read/write/speak Italian, Carlo Ginzburg's books would be easier to read. I'm finding the translation of Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath choppy and difficult. Grrr...
And as much as I'd like to babble about books all day, I suppose I should save some for tomorrow, and so on, and so forth....
I figured that maybe an introduction would be useful here, for those who bother (and we do salute you).
I realized today that I am quite a weirdo, and that I really do make people who don't know me uncomfortable. I guess up until this point I had delusions of normalcy, like I could hide it or something. Oh well. Another world shattered. Time to build some new ones. Maybe I'll just make a little flag that says 'Awkward Moments Await Us All' that I can wave at inopportune times.
I have my tongue pierced at a 12 g. Should I lose it for any reason, I highly doubt I'd get it done again.
Although I've wound up in the category of LHP, it's mostly because the RHPers kicked me out of their club for passive-aggressive subversive behaviour and anti-authoritarianism.
I'm kidding.
Devil-worship is just a habit that I couldn't get out of, the most satisfactory result of a highly convoluted series of coincidences. Traditional witchcraft has room for the fallen angels and folksy devils and chthonic goddesses that I somehow fell in love with, and Wicca does not.
And when I write Wicca, I mean traditional Wicca (ie. BTW, etc). If I mean eclectic, I will qualify it as such.
I love Sufi poetry. I was raised Baha'i, so it all kind of melds together nicely. Of course, if I were ever to convert to a monotheistic religion, it would be Islam. Not that that's of any relevance, I'm just throwing things out here. Perhaps I've written too much already...
I grow the ingredients for absinthe in my garden, as well as many other interesting *cough*hallucinogenic*cough* plants. I'd like to obtain Mandragoras again, as mine died off. Diviner's Sage is also something I'd like to befriend.
Um... It's not Moonshine, it's Alchemy... :)
Cheers
PS: I'm going to London in less than a month. If you are from or have been there, please oh please tell me how to navigate the underground. I haven't even seen a subway before...
Until he twitched in his sleep I was certain he was gone, and thought it was for the best.
But no, he's still here, and purring too.
I can't believe someone would drop an animal off in -35 C weather, though by the way you can feel his bones, it might be more possible than I would like. He's friendly enough, and just past the cute stage. Forgotten when he lost his kitten-ish form, and let starve until someone thought to get him off their property. Full brother to my other 3 foundlings, I can tell.
