Eldaradan sneaks in the backdoor....
Wow, so this is my first LJ post since December.
I have a confession, though--I HAVE been on here, mostly to read a few specific journals or keep up with certain communities.
Anyway--what has everyone's favorite moi been up to? Gods, tons. (Cut for those of you who have talked to me in the last year.)
Well, since it's been about a year and a half since I posted with any sort of regularity--or talked to many of you on here--I'll try to give the short version. After I dropped out of school because I basically had a complete mental melt down (much better now, thank you) I finished my tenure at the OU library then went to make my living at Christie's Toybox, selling lousy sex toys to a clientele that alternated between overweight rednecks who needed sexcessories because otherwise sex was logistically impossible, and well-to-do white folks who looked desperate to have an orgasm. My box was a highly strung, highly entertaining lady from Oklahoma City of Japanese descent. She was beautiful and had great tattoos and a fabulously bad attitude, which was a real hoot because she liked me.
Still, that scene was not sustainable--I was unwilling to tolerate that much ennervation for such a small amount of money more than minimum wage. After a few months, I was able to get work at everyone's favourite hippie health food store, Earth Natural Foods. I worked there for just over a year for great bosses, with great folks and mostly really interesting customers; an average day at the Earth was more intellectually stimulating than an average day at the University of Oklahoma ever was, which was lovely. I got my own apartment and struggled to pay the bills, and spent a few months moonlighting at the Norman Public Library, which did such wretched things to my schedule and patience that I'm amazed no one in my vicinity found themselves laying on the floor, staring at their hot dripping heart in my hand. That job involved a very tight cave, miserable fluorescent lights, and coworkers who wore way too much perfume, cologne, scented deodorants, and other foul smells. My first week there, in the break room, I actually had a coworker say, "You don't have a Tv? Well, what do you do?" I stared at her blankly. "I... I work in a library. I read a lot of books, and hang out with my friends...."
During roughly the last year, I've also been traveling back and forth between Norman and Denver, where I'm in a two-year training with a teacher in the Anderson Feri Tradition of Witchcraft. She's an amazing woman who inspires me to work and to do the Work, and my chosen tradition is fierce, beautiful, powerful. I've been studying hoodoo as well, which is an African-American and Ozarkan folk magic tradition derived from magic from the Congo and Amerindian herb lore, with lots of influence from other North American magical traditions. It's not a religion in itself like Vodoun or Santeria, though--most hoodoos are Baptists or members of various chiefly African-American churches. It's fascinating as a cultural study, and it's amazing as a magical study. I've been developing a strong daily practice involving meditation and devotional work and other forms of self-development, and I'm extremely happy with my progress--what I've learned, and who I've become. I've also reached a level in my understanding of astrology that puts me at "way more advanced than most laymen" and yet far away from a professional level. The more I understand that system and track the ongoing transits and their effects on me and those around me, the clearer it becomes to me that Newton's rebuttal to some astrology critic or another was dead on.
At the moment, I'm in Denver--I quit my job at the Earth when my lease ended and ran off to see what was happening in the rest of the world. I went to the Rainbow Gathering, which was an excellent experience--particularly meeting the Radical Faeries, which is a hard movement to define. It's a movement of queers--mostly gay men--who are generally very Spirit-oriented (often practicing Earth-centered religions), very much 'doers' more than be-ers, generally smart and interesting, and who are fond of saying "Happy Hallowe'en!!"... because EVERY DAY is Halloween. There's religion, magic, drag, and sex--I just can't imagine anything more fabulous.
I've been visiting members of my family, and am now staying with friends and trying to get around the country a bit. I'm more or less on Walkabout at the moment, wrestling with questions of right livelihood and self-knowledge and indulging the Will To Research with reckless abandon, and deepening my yoga practice while I'm at it.
Maybe it sounds like I've surrendered entirely to my hippie tendencies, but, even with the herbal medicine (and magic), the drums and dancing and wild ecstatic religion and everything else, I really feel like I've released a lot of my personal identification with hippiedom.
Anywho--I'm hoping to become a regular livejournaler again--both with general 'this is my life' posts and more specific posts for more specific filters. My ideas as a radical polythealogian have advanced and deepened and become more complex and rigorous over the last few years, and I've been learned to reprocess and am at the early stages of reintegrating my religious upbringing, which was seriously facilitated by recognizing the Luciferian nature of the Christ.
I reckon that's all I've got at the moment, except that I just noticed that two of my LJ icons are the same picture. How curious.
Nice to see y'all again--let me know if there are any filters (personal, general, magical/religious, thealogical, etc) that you're interested in being included on. No hefty promises about regular posting though, not yet.
~kaf
I have a confession, though--I HAVE been on here, mostly to read a few specific journals or keep up with certain communities.
Anyway--what has everyone's favorite moi been up to? Gods, tons. (Cut for those of you who have talked to me in the last year.)
Well, since it's been about a year and a half since I posted with any sort of regularity--or talked to many of you on here--I'll try to give the short version. After I dropped out of school because I basically had a complete mental melt down (much better now, thank you) I finished my tenure at the OU library then went to make my living at Christie's Toybox, selling lousy sex toys to a clientele that alternated between overweight rednecks who needed sexcessories because otherwise sex was logistically impossible, and well-to-do white folks who looked desperate to have an orgasm. My box was a highly strung, highly entertaining lady from Oklahoma City of Japanese descent. She was beautiful and had great tattoos and a fabulously bad attitude, which was a real hoot because she liked me.
Still, that scene was not sustainable--I was unwilling to tolerate that much ennervation for such a small amount of money more than minimum wage. After a few months, I was able to get work at everyone's favourite hippie health food store, Earth Natural Foods. I worked there for just over a year for great bosses, with great folks and mostly really interesting customers; an average day at the Earth was more intellectually stimulating than an average day at the University of Oklahoma ever was, which was lovely. I got my own apartment and struggled to pay the bills, and spent a few months moonlighting at the Norman Public Library, which did such wretched things to my schedule and patience that I'm amazed no one in my vicinity found themselves laying on the floor, staring at their hot dripping heart in my hand. That job involved a very tight cave, miserable fluorescent lights, and coworkers who wore way too much perfume, cologne, scented deodorants, and other foul smells. My first week there, in the break room, I actually had a coworker say, "You don't have a Tv? Well, what do you do?" I stared at her blankly. "I... I work in a library. I read a lot of books, and hang out with my friends...."
During roughly the last year, I've also been traveling back and forth between Norman and Denver, where I'm in a two-year training with a teacher in the Anderson Feri Tradition of Witchcraft. She's an amazing woman who inspires me to work and to do the Work, and my chosen tradition is fierce, beautiful, powerful. I've been studying hoodoo as well, which is an African-American and Ozarkan folk magic tradition derived from magic from the Congo and Amerindian herb lore, with lots of influence from other North American magical traditions. It's not a religion in itself like Vodoun or Santeria, though--most hoodoos are Baptists or members of various chiefly African-American churches. It's fascinating as a cultural study, and it's amazing as a magical study. I've been developing a strong daily practice involving meditation and devotional work and other forms of self-development, and I'm extremely happy with my progress--what I've learned, and who I've become. I've also reached a level in my understanding of astrology that puts me at "way more advanced than most laymen" and yet far away from a professional level. The more I understand that system and track the ongoing transits and their effects on me and those around me, the clearer it becomes to me that Newton's rebuttal to some astrology critic or another was dead on.
At the moment, I'm in Denver--I quit my job at the Earth when my lease ended and ran off to see what was happening in the rest of the world. I went to the Rainbow Gathering, which was an excellent experience--particularly meeting the Radical Faeries, which is a hard movement to define. It's a movement of queers--mostly gay men--who are generally very Spirit-oriented (often practicing Earth-centered religions), very much 'doers' more than be-ers, generally smart and interesting, and who are fond of saying "Happy Hallowe'en!!"... because EVERY DAY is Halloween. There's religion, magic, drag, and sex--I just can't imagine anything more fabulous.
I've been visiting members of my family, and am now staying with friends and trying to get around the country a bit. I'm more or less on Walkabout at the moment, wrestling with questions of right livelihood and self-knowledge and indulging the Will To Research with reckless abandon, and deepening my yoga practice while I'm at it.
Maybe it sounds like I've surrendered entirely to my hippie tendencies, but, even with the herbal medicine (and magic), the drums and dancing and wild ecstatic religion and everything else, I really feel like I've released a lot of my personal identification with hippiedom.
Anywho--I'm hoping to become a regular livejournaler again--both with general 'this is my life' posts and more specific posts for more specific filters. My ideas as a radical polythealogian have advanced and deepened and become more complex and rigorous over the last few years, and I've been learned to reprocess and am at the early stages of reintegrating my religious upbringing, which was seriously facilitated by recognizing the Luciferian nature of the Christ.
I reckon that's all I've got at the moment, except that I just noticed that two of my LJ icons are the same picture. How curious.
Nice to see y'all again--let me know if there are any filters (personal, general, magical/religious, thealogical, etc) that you're interested in being included on. No hefty promises about regular posting though, not yet.
~kaf