I think it’s fair to say that I’ve had my share of struggles with this site, and those keeping score might have noticed a period of silence from me, or even stopped by this month when the site was again down (for what should honestly be the very last time)…
For my disclosure on this or any of my posts or pages… please visit my Disclosure page.
However, my tech “un-savvyiness” finally overcome, I’ve managed to finally finally finally actually take full ownership of this site and so from here on out there shouldn’t be any further interruption… Going forward, it just falls to me to keep on keeping at it… which I’ve sadly just had a lot less time and/or energy to put towards of late anyway.
Blame the monthly full moon Abundance rituals perhaps, but the truth is my day job demands more and more attention that I used to be able to devote to other things… But as the Universe has seen fit to sweep away many of the “opposing opportunities” to do just that, I can invest in now what should pay off in a fairly significant way down the line (materialistically anyway)…
But it’s also meant that both Blackspire and Adventure Hook have taken a back seat, and likely will have to stay on the back burner for a while as I continue to juggle the rest of things. Adventure Hook in particular is off for reasons beyond me, but also pending some “puppet restructuring” which I one day hope to be able to explain (or try to anyway). It’s sad because the gaming stuff tends to be the most fun stuff (generally speaking) but there are more serious things that need my focus these days.
It’s not that the focus of my work these days isn’t still fun… or even comic or gaming-related… but my day job in that industry aside, I’ve also been hard at work over these last few weeks focusing on my Murder Mystery Matrix RPG which has since totally taken on a life of its own and evolved into something… complex…
Well… maybe complex to create anyway, but of course, trusting in the structure of the Holy Hexagram to create the inter-personal dynamics of the Suspects characters is probably what gave it life in the first place.
I’ve probably written some 12,000 words for the MMM game so far, and while I do think I now finally have the broad strokes of the rules all worked out, there are definitely more than a few details that still need to hammered out before I can finish writing out the rest of it.
Of course there’s still the matter of drafting up the initial design of the thing… then there’s play-testing to consider… Still, I think I may be on to something pretty cool here.
I just have to do it justice (by making sure it honors the gods).
I also wrapped up the final round of corrections on the lettering on the comic pages for my “A Faerie Tale Wedding” with my editor R.G. at Heavy Metal, and I have to admit some of his suggested cuts to my dialogue were pretty smart. Others sure… maybe I didn’t exactly agree with, but in all honesty not fighting about it felt like a good exercise in letting go… and so while I certainly shared my piece, I was fine ultimately deferring all final decisions to him…
It’s a good thing Jenny gave it a proofread after me though, as she picked up on a few things I’d missed, and which thankfully made it into the final draft.
*Phew!*
So yes… while arguably I don’t fully love a small handful of the final edits that were made to my script, overall I’m truly pleased with the result (which seems to remind people who’ve seen it of a Vertigo comic from the 90’s… fine praise indeed), but especially because I also have it on “good authority” that when the “Mythic Worlds Special” issue of Heavy Metal Magazine #299 goes on sale (estimated July 15th) it looks like my “A Faerie Tale Wedding” story is the one the issue actually opens with… pretty cool!
So, yeah… after their 4+ month hiatus, the first story people read when they pick up the book will be mine. I feel like I should feel flattered… definitely lucky… it’s probably better than being buried somewhere in the back anyway (which was fully what I expected).
From the day after the full moon to the new moon, I attempted the 14 day long “weight loss” spell I picked up from Frater Xavier’s newest resource Revival: Magick for Health and Well Being that I was curious to try.
As sort of a baseline test, I performed the ritual/visualization portion of the operation over and over each day, but otherwise without giving it any “help”… i.e. no change in usual diet, no extra exercise, etc. Admittedly I even eat a little worse than usual, so even I was a little astounded when I started to notice a real difference as the days passed… I even started to fit into clothes I haven’t been able to wear in some time.
The candle I bought regrettably burned out on its own a day and a half prior to the actual final 14th day of the operation, but I was certainly pleased enough with the results of just this one pillar of wax I was happy to “settle” with the results at day 12 and leave it at that. I felt so different that while I honestly didn’t expect to suddenly drop down to my “perfect weight” I was certain of a change, and even excited to combine it once again with a more robust effort on my part physically to boost the results that much more (which is what my original assumptions were about it, anyway)…
Now… the one thing that surprised me in all this is technically speaking, I didn’t actually shed any pounds, but beyond the clothes thing even my wife mentioned I looked thinner… so what’s the truth here? Did tissue transmute? Is there a simpler explanation? Like I said, I honestly didn’t think I’d get results without contributing at least some level of actual work to the process, but come the waning moon I plan to try again to see what happens if I double down… again…
And on a somewhat related note, my first Magick 101 video recently hit 50,000 views and subscriptions to my YouTube Channel continue to rise. I had crested 1500 a little while ago, and have since blown past 1600 and even 1700 and am well on my way to 1800…
I wonder if there’s any change to YouTube’s monetary algorithm again when I hit 2000 (I guess we’ll see) but at least I can say (although the amount is quite small) that I have begun to finally even make a little bit of money off of these videos now.
Again, not why I did them, but it a nice form of appreciation… almost as nice as the actual appreciation some people show with their comments on the videos. While I find it quite interesting to analyse the atrophy of viewership from the first video all the way to the most recent (and the ones people seem to think they can just “skip ahead” to) from 52,000 views down to only 400, I know at least some small portion of folks who discover my videos find it worthwhile to watch (or even re-watch) them all.
Which is what’s brought about this next stage of things… for all around the same time at least four different subscribers who each made it all the way through all 19 videos (that’s over 7 hours of content) and still had questions, so each reached out to me seeking guidance. And feeling led to explore how I could turn this into something that could be of benefit to more, I’ve begun recording various long phone calls with those who volunteer to participate. The idea is that each talks a little bit about their spiritual background, and then they each ask me three questions (that I have time in advance to think about), the plan being to take excepts from all of them and create my new “Magick: Guidance Counselling” series…
And so, I’ve recorded a handful of conversations with a number of these folks so far. I’ve done two separate calls with the gentleman we’re calling “Frater Shiva”, one with a “Hermes Hoddevik”, and lastly I’m actually scheduled to have a second call with a “Brother Chris” tonight. He wanted to have a talk by the full moon, and it seems he’s got something a bit urgent on his mind… plus, it turns out it’ll be the second magickal thing I’ll be doing during an hour of the sun this full moon…
All three of these gents have each come to me with some very interesting questions… ones which have allowed me to discuss all manner of great topics I probably never would have brought up in one of my lectures (whenever I start doing those again). I don’t know when I will actually get around to editing this stuff all together (and some recordings are going to take more clean up work than others to get them “lisenable”) but I’ve currently got over 6 hours worth of conversations recorded and ready to do “something” with…
And that’s not including the Temple of the Western Gate stuff…
So… for some time now Frater Abaris Hakim Aldaw’ (formerly known as Brother Enlil) and I have discussed doing some kind of “show” together (maybe it’ll be a podcast, maybe it’ll double as a video series for YouTube) that naturally we’d call Temple of the Western Gate… and would generally just try to make it about “The Great Work of Magick”. It’d start out with the two of us, but in time we could have different guests on to discuss any matter of topic, and Frater Wimsaur has already agreed to be a “regular” (and his perspective is always interesting).
And so, Frater Abaris and I have also gone ahead recorded a few hours worth of what would probably make for our introductory show… though while I haven’t listened back through any of it yet, I’m honestly not sure how much of it we can actually use. It’s… raw… and probably a bit dry at times, so it’ll take some editing regardless, and with so much other stuff ahead of it: the mentoring series, let alone the Adventure Hook promos I want to make… plus the Murder Mystery Matrix stuff is faaaar from finished, so it think it’ll be a while yet before TotWG sees the light of day…
The Age of Coronavirus has made me even more of a hermit, but Jenny and I have still managed to enjoy some limited meet-ups with very limited folks, even if it seems we’ll be back to only seeing friends and family via web-calls for a while more again, the madness of the world these days at least seems like its starting to become a powerful momentum for good.
Maybe that’s why there’s been so many mass meditations held these past few months (including all the 144K ones that I was sure to join) to help us all usher in the highest potentialities of the Age of Aquarius.
It’s the whole point, after all… isn’t it?
***
Sunday 7/5/2020-
Sun: Cancer
Moon: Capricorn (Full)
If you’d like to start from the “beginning” of all this… you can read from my first blog post.
For my disclosure on this or any of my posts or pages… please visit my Disclosure page.
