Today was a long day at Lodge doing Lodge stuff. Jenny stayed home which was just as well as the day kicked off with our monthly (generally a bit dry) business meeting.
For my disclosure on this or any of my post or pages… please visit my Disclosure page.
However… I learned quite a shocking bit of news that’s going to significantly shift the landscape of the Lodge in the upcoming months. We’re all going to be forced to put on our thinking caps and be looking at things differently. Mum’s the word, though I think you might have noticed a pattern with that sort of thing of late…
I talked a bit about outreach at the Folk Metal Fest yesterday, and we discussed the idea of possibly using the Ottobar at some point in the future to host some sort of ritual. It’s an idea with some real potential, depending on what we want to host.
I also gave my Man of Earth Representative report, and let them know about all my recent suggestions for the Panel and the Delegates, as well as my meeting with one of the new Dwlwgates this past week. My hope is some progress will be made on that who dynamic shift soon. However, as the recent (unrelated) ruckus that consumed my week was not brought up at all, I (though tempted) opted not to bring it up either.
For Mass I served as Child again, with BJ as priest and the Lodge Master as priestess. Our congregation was quite small today, with Frater Raziel along with two of his Masonic brothers (both first timers to an O.T.O. event) making up the vast majority of those in attendance. One of those men turned out to also be a voodoo priest, and so while we’ve certainly had some first-timers wig out on us a bit after their initial experience with the Gnostic Mass… these guys were not among them…
Raziel, who like many occultists is also a gamer, also invited me to a new gamer group he started based on the new Monte Cooke game that’s currently being Kickstartered called Invisible Sun. I am particularly taken with the game’s approach to intense in-depth storytelling, and a game-play format that can take place around a table, one-on-one, as side sessions (even without the GM), and there are even rewards for the time you sit around just thinking about your character out of game. There’s also a unique occult system, including a special tarot deck which GMs can use to advance the plot. This part at least smacks of similarity to Monomyth, though it’s definitely a different thing altogether…
I’ll admit, I do a lot of that non-local/side-session stuff in my own games (especially Reliquum) so I’m really fascinated to see the game mechanics (especially the reward system) of Invisible Sun. It’s an expensive investment (usually an entire group would chip in to get one) but as Raziel is willing to chip in more to be the one to hold on to the kit, as well as GM the game (which I’m honestly just not up for) so I’m definitely in.
Anyway, after Mass was a Qabbalah class that was being taught by Wimsaur Madivhan which I’d been looking forward to for a while now. Wimsaur knows his Qabbalah (even if he prefers spelling it with one “B”) and while I feel I’ve also got a good grasp on the system, I figured I definitely could still learn a few things from him, as well as ensure I brush up/review the basics again. I do find it useful to do that on occasion, as sometimes new, more mature perspectives can yield new revelations previously overlooked. And yeah, that happened a few times today.
Wimsaur had put quite a bit of work into his presentation, which I’d had the chance to review a bit a few months ago, but has come even farther since, and by the end of his two-hour talk, everyone in attendance wanted a PDF of his Powerpoint presentation.
Qabalah, A Practical Primer – Wimsaur Madivhan (wimsaur.com)
Even though there is an entire lecture to go along with these slides, I do think there’s a great deal of value to be had from just the visuals and diagrams of this presentation.
It was up to me to clean up, close down, and lock up the Lodge (one of the privileges of actually having a set of keys to the building) and then home again (to write this post).
And today actually marks the one year anniversary of my first day of actually keeping a daily blog for this site. A good landmark I’d say…
Sunday 8/21/16-
Sun: Leo-
Moon: Aries-
For my disclosure on this or any of my post or pages… please visit my Disclosure page.
trying to contact you about giving a lecture / presentation for the Theosophical Society in Marylnd. Please contact / email me. Thanks…Carole -spoonbending facilitator.