Mystic Oasis Studios- A new professional direction

After years of being a professional figure model, I decided to put my "career" in that field to rest after my stay in Phoenix that nearly led to me becoming a human trafficking statistic. I posted at length about it in an earlier post, so I won't reiterate too much about that topic.

What I will say is that because of that, and lots of encouragement from Og, I've started focusing much more on my art as my career. It's still in its infancy, but I figured I would share what I've been working on - Mystic Oasis Studios

It's not much, but it's a start.  I'm already managing to just barely comfortably scrape by on my artwork alone, and I have some commissions and other projects lined up already.

I have the setup for casting bronze figured out, and my workshop is coming together.

That means I'll be making these soon-

I also want to give a shoutout to Conjureman Ali a good friend of mine who has helped and supported me over the years when it comes to everything from my magical practices, to my artistic skills. He's been one of my biggest repeat customers over the years for graphic design work, and because of that, has really helped me to develop as a professional artist. You can also check out his stuff at House of Quimbanda :) 

I'm pretty excited about the logo I developed for them, and how the timing meshes up with my ventures into professional artistry and design! 

So here's to a hectic year, full of challenges, changes, and growth. 2013 is a year I never want to repeat, but 2014 will be better, stronger, but hopefully not faster ;) I'm starting to feel old at 26 already. 

Here's to a better, and less stressful future. 

Do you know your gods?

My relationship with Sekhmet has been on and off again for a few years now. As I get to know her and work with her, I find myself realizing something: I don't know her. I never have.

Sure, I've read her stories, sure I've read literature on how she and Bast have shared similar roles and crossed over one another. Sure I've read about her associations with this or that through the ages... but what does it actually mean?

As my experiences with Upwawet unfold, and the dance between him and who I know as "Anubis" continues, I find that the dance just leads me deeper.

These entities, are far more than the sum of their stories. They have depths, layers upon layers, like the pages and chapters of the earth itself... but how many of us treat them this way?  How many of us assume that because we're working with them, that we can somehow represent them? I've seen it happen with people I know, claiming they're doing that particular god's work, do something in their name, or that such and such god would  "want" things a certain way.  I've even seen people claiming that once you start working with a particular god or goddess, that you're somehow their priest or priestess....and this couldn't be farther from the truth.

Just because you can call on a spirit and talk to them, does not mean that you have the right to represent them. Just because you may have talked to an entity for years, does not mean that you have the right to represent them.

While I've done what I can to "avoid" the label of priestess over the years, I find that the label still sticks.  All I can really do is try to avoid the fallout that could come with it.

But the point is... Sekhmet, Anubis, whoever, they're "people" and just like people, they have quirks, triggers, and things they're good or bad at accomplishing. While they most certainly don't run an OS that we could identify as "human" they are still individuals in their own right. A few books, and a few successful evocations of a god or spirit doesn't mean you suddenly work for them, or can act as their representative.

I remember the first couple of years that I knew Sekhmet. I was convinced that she was an embodiment of primal rage and judgement.... thought that she was also an embodiment of fire, a "lion of war" ....and I wasn't necessarily wrong. What was wrong was that I dismissed those who worshiped her as a "mother" goddess. I was convinced that they were the sort who just taking every "female" god-form and turn it into the form of the divine feminine, without actually referencing historical or cultural context...or they'd confused her with Bast.

Since then I understand a bit more about how Sekhmet can be related to a "mother" figure, though that isn't a primary aspect in my experiences with her.  I've been working with her off and on for around three years. I feel like I barely know her. I know "her" but not the conscious knowledge of who and what she is, all wrapped up in separately, and well defined packages. I lack the experience to properly convey the words that describe who she actually is. Anything else is like saying that a list of likes and dislikes, is enough to understand and know the person that has them.

I worked with Anubis for the better part of a decade before we finally broke the ice enough that I saw another side of him. When I was 13-16 I did twice daily prayers, burnt candles, incense, mediated, did evocations, and still, even after all that time, I wasn't shown this side of him until I needed it. I wasn't a child to be coddled, he made sure I knew when it was time to put on the big girl pants, and actually get to work, and to make it "easier" his sense of sardonic humor kicked in. Sometimes at my expense, but always to my benefit despite it.

It always seems like they know me better than I know myself. They see through my blindness, they know, through my confusion. And yet, I only really have a handful of words that I could say about them, and who they seem to be.

Do you know your gods? They know you... so maybe we should all put the effort forward to try. It's the least we can do, for ourselves and for them. In knowing them, perhaps we can start piecing together the mystery of ourselves.

Cosmic Wedgie - Messages from the Universe

Ogy and I have talked at length after we finally started getting settled here in the Pacific Northwest. We've noticed a strange phenomena in the previous months, that have led us to where we are now. (safe, stable, among good people, with loads of resources available to us, thank fuck.) Pennsylvania chewed us up and spit us out. Regardless of where we were, once we started hemming and hawing and not actually trying to leave... everything went to hell.

We tried to wait on a company that said they were going to hire Ogy, and make him tons of money. - we started having problems being able to get resources to do things like eat and drink well. I started having more health problems, and people with backstabbing natures started showing themselves.

I started doing simple sigil magic to try to move the forces in our favor. Every day when I was getting out of the bath/shower. I'd do a meditation, and draw a specific sigil on the fogged up mirror glass, with the sigil overlapping my reflection as I drew it, and put my intent into it. I wanted those barriers, those things keeping us from what we wanted, to shatter.

Maybe I'm a masochist, but when I do magic, I don't put in safeguards against possibly having to suffer more before I get what I'm working for. If the currents shifting means that things NEED to get worse before they can get better, then sure, damn me for a while.

In this case, the path out was me getting so sick that I needed recovery somewhere where I had regular access to clean water and food- and that was Ogy's parents place near Pittsburgh. When I finally started recovering, we considered staying there for a while. "Just long enough to do some modeling work in the city, so we can buy plane tickets out" ....and then like magic, Ogy's mom has a psychotic episode, and kicks us to the curb to "go find a homeless shelter" ...... somehow through all of this, there was no fear. There was just an animalistic defiance. I held my head high, held Ogy's hand, and we went off into the night. When it looked like we weren't going to have a place to sleep that night, I made a phone call.

That friend had never even met Ogy before....and yet, they bought both of us tickets out on the next day's train. I'd been prepared to sleep in the woods, and have the cops help us get our stuff out of his parents house the next day...and after that, probably hitch hike across the country.

As soon as those tickets were bought, our luck turned around. We met some people at the gas station across town when we were looking for the homeless shelter. We were offered a place to sleep, and other resources. After that, we got the call that we could come back to the house, and were able to sleep there.

The next day, we were gone. We were hugged, kissed, told we were loved, loaded up on food, and boarded the train. The trip itself was uneventful, but we had food, water, each other, and were treated fantastically when we arrived in Portland. I was "home" in body, mind, and spirit.

We've had some bumps here and there, but things have been coming together. (and I still haven't given up on jewelry stuff either) We've been meeting people, making a home for ourselves, and have started talking about our next steps in our individual personal journeys and work. It literally seems like everything has been working out for us, to the point that we've been offered jobs taking care of the landlady's properties, helping with landscaping, and some other general upkeep. - I can't do most of it, but Ogy can. If we can find the key for it, we can also drive one of the vehicles on the property. (time to do some magic for that too)

I've never seen things just...completely turn around like this. It was to the point that I wondered if I'd been crossed. But now I wonder, did I cross myself? My "go ahead and damn me for awhile" attitude, might have had something to do with it. Maybe it has before as well.

But I still have to wonder if it was what Ogy suggested to me: Dharma.

If that somehow in the truest sense of the word, we went against our collective Dharma by spending all of our money trying to stay in one place because of the promise of a job (that my readings gave inconclusive results on) that we thought would have fixed everything.....instead of doing what we said we were going to do in the first place- which is take our money and go to Washington together.

If that is the case, then was the cause me, the magic done, or was it the Universe literally giving us a cosmic wedgie to tell us that there was nothing more to see or learn there, and to "move along" ? Maybe some combination of all of the above?

I've noticed that when I'm not responding properly to a situation, that I can't "hear" the spirits I work with as easily. It's a radio I have to tune, because I'm literally operating on the wrong frequency. Maybe this occurs on a larger scale. I'd been told for months, that I needed to change how I was living, and that I needed to focus on my art more, because it was what I "really wanted to do" (tm)
I didn't have access to places for art supplies, my computer was broken, and I was turning back to modeling to try to make ends meet. - in that sense I was in a place and situation that didn't meet my needs for development. But again, was it myself, or higher powers that  brought on the "temporary crossed condition"?

It's all good now, except for my anxiety that "the other shoe is going to drop" and then I'll have nothing again... but I've got graphic design work going, as well as a mask project.. which is allowing me to bulk up my portfolio, and learn even more tricks with Photoshop and Illustrator. It doesn't feel like a "chore" either. I've been enjoying working on the things I'm working on.

We appear to have also mysteriously lost a housemate who was only here for a month, whose presence would have complicated some opportunities that we've been given. I was even handed an omen about it, mentioned it to Ogy about three days ago, and found out today that it was true. That sort of thing hadn't happened in a long while.

Last time something like this happened, it was when I was trying to run away from my previous relationship, and turned off the lamp on my desk when I was leaving with all my stuff....and it had this strange, strange, sense of finality. Almost like the life of something had been snuffed out in the process, and I had the very clear feeling that I would never be turning that lamp on again.... and I didn't. When I was talked into coming back, and tried to turn the light on...it had burnt out. No warning, just gone- like the illusion of a loving and trusting relationship that I tried to hold onto.

This time, I was in the bathroom cleaning up, and the housemate's towel mysteriously fell from the hook. It had been on there pretty solidy before, and I'd never touched it. I had the sudden, strange feeling that he would never be coming home. I'd known he'd ended up in jail because of a complication with his car title...but we were under the impression that he'd just be spending a night or two as a slap on the wrist, and maybe a fine.

He was supposed to be out two days ago. We got the call this morning that he wouldn't be living here anymore. Apparently there's been a string of offenses over the years, and he's likely going to be in for a year as a result. I'd had some concerns about him potentially bringing trouble down on us, but it looks like that issue has already been taken care of.

Maybe a year behind bars will tell him that driving an uninsured, untitled vehicle, with a suspended license, that got suspended due to a hit and run on a parked car, is a bad idea, and that maybe his license was taken away for a reason. I doubt it, but at least I got an omen out of it?

Since apparently lightbulbs and towels can be omens in the proper context, and you "know" what it is, when you see/feel it....and I guess this whole thing with me being back on the right frequency works on a number of levels. Or maybe it's that I'm not sick and malnourished anymore. *shrug*

What matters

My journey started over six months ago now.  I didn't expect to be on the east coast so long, and it was rife with challenges that were mental, physical, as well as spiritual. I'm honestly not sure I've ever dealt with challenges of this magnitude previously, and I now have.... a great deal more respect for the "simple" things in life.

Delta airlines broke my laptop. That was the start. My bag looked like it had been cut some combination of a knife and a cheese grater, and my macbook, my pride and joy I used for graphics design work...was battered and broken. I had been planning on getting back more into graphics design work after the ordeal in Phoenix, but this option was taken from me before I even landed in NY.

I was assured when I finally landed by the man behind the desk, and the nice flight attendant, that they were sure I would be compensated. I made my claim, and a week later I heard back from their office, basically saying I was SOL, because I hadn't bought insurance.

 I attempted to make a case for severe negligence (some employee ripped open my bag for fucks sake. That should be a little different than my bag getting jostled or something.) but they continued to tell me that because I hadn't bought insurance, that they didn't owe me any form of compensation, despite damage to my very ability to work....Well, shit.

Ogy took care of me where he could, but the house we were staying at was almost 3 miles out of town...and as we found out, the tap water wasn't drinkable. This wasn't a problem at first, but without our own transportation, bringing water home was a difficult chore, and the combination of eating, drinking, and throwing money at rent and utilities, eventually drained my savings. The assurance, the reason we stayed, was because we were sure that he was going to be getting hired on at a big local company in PA.

 The idea is that it would have paid enough to provide us with the funds needed to buy some land,  and built a small fortress and dedicated lodge to allow us to practice our Arts in safety and solitude, while also having dedicated space that magical groups could rent out and use for their workings.

I've also had a dream of creating a physical temple dedicated to Anubis and Upwawet, as I believe that there currently is no such standing temple in the word in modern times. This is still an idea I have, and I haven't begun to abandon any of it.... but the job never happened. The call never came, and it was always "Oh, I think we're hiring next month" ....and it went on like that for a couple of months.

All the while, food, water, and shelter became more precious to us than ever. I learned how to eat foods I never would have touched before, and developed a taste for them. For a while, I was almost eating a vegetarian diet. This isn't normal or healthy for me. I started getting sick off and on from hypoglycemia, and not having enough meat based proteins (soy makes me sick) and once I was thirsty enough that I tried drinking the sulfur-water that came out of the tap, while Ogy wasn't home to comfort me and tell me not to...and we were out of bottled water.  It led to violent retching to the point that Ogy and his housemate were ready to take me to the hospital. Thankfully I was fine. Ironically, this happened after I had just finished watching the Life of Pi.

Due to my poor diet and frequent long walks to get water, I developed more leg problems, and sometimes wasn't able to walk. I relied on Ogy to take care of me. We kept waiting for that phone call telling him he had a job. It never came. All the while, we were dealing with a prowler on the property of the trailer park we were staying in, drunkards, and crazy, schizophrenic trailer park managers with "Empty Nest" syndrome, who basically were trying to manipulate me into becoming their mini-mi, and wearing their clothes, while spreading rumors that I was a 15 year old run away,  and that Ogy was committing statutory rape. - For the record, I turn 26 this month. At the time, I found the accusations laughable, but looking back on it, it was downright chilling.

Ogy taught me how to knife fight, and on more than one occasion, we chased the pedophile prowler through the woods in the middle of the night, with swords and shotguns. It was a different reality- a reality where you had to fight to survive, a reality where I knew there was probably some pervert jacking off into the creek the neighbor kids swam in, either before or after he tried to snatch one of them through their windows at night. A place where if I went out at night alone, I knew I wasn't safe... a place where if someone wears a shirt without a bra, they're instantly labeled a "whore" ....a place where I always had to be on my guard with everything I said to anyone, the way I dressed, and how weak I let myself act when I was hungry or thirsty.

I had planned to go to Ogy to recharge after Phoenix.... to find myself, to gather my strength again....and to just be safe. I thought I was running away from the dark underbelly by leaving modeling behind, by going somewhere different. But I wasn't, and I didn't. It found me at every turn...and it was never out of the corner of my eye- it was already right in front of me.

I started talking to my spirits again...for some reason it seemed like my "hearing" was deafened in Phoenix. My senses felt shot there, useless. In the wilds of Pennsylvania, it felt clearer, despite the hardships, despite the fears. I felt like I was still missing a piece of the puzzle despite this.

I found myself in a situation where I was able to get ahold of some psilocybin mushrooms. Ogy had taken them before, and knew what to expect. I didn't. I'd listened to some Terrence McKenna, and that helped, but it still couldn't have prepared me for what happened.  Ogy and I ceremonially brewed some tea from them. We each asked the spirit within the fungi to aid us, to show us what we needed to see and to understand. We shared a mug of the brew, passing it back and forth between each other throughout the night.

I had never done psychadelics before. I'd smoked a little pot here and there to help with my aches and pains, but that had been the extent. It isn't for everyone, and I can definitely see how it could break a person, depending on their reception to the message they're given, the information they see. I'd attained similar states during sleep deprivation, deep trance work, and in the place between being awake and being asleep, so at least I had "something" to compare it to.

I can't speak of my entire experience, other than to say, that I learned what it means to be human. Without the trappings, without the externalized concepts, what humanity IS, beneath all of those layers that we put upon ourselves, and labels we try to fit ourselves to. I saw the milky way that night, in a splendor that I had never witnessed. I saw the beauty of every pen stroke, the very energy of intent that I put into a drawing or painting...and it was beautiful. I will never de-value myself or my art ever again by saying "eh, its just a crappy sketch, but thanks" whenever someone compliments my work. I know what I do is sacred, and that partaking of this essence is sacred...

But if the mushroom is abused, if you pervert the spirit of what it tries to show you... you will be pulled apart, and shown the universe inside out, you will be bitched at by the very fibers of the walls around you, and it will leave you feeling scared, and bewildered, praying for the sun to come up, instead of observing the universe in all of its splendor, beauty, and energy, and knowing your place within it. It's a delicate balance, and its one that can EASILY be tainted by your own fears, and preconceived notions of what IS.

I never saw any crazy visuals, no pretty lights or swirling colors. I was very much anchored in what was real, what was tangible. Colors were more vivid, but it was more that I became aware of a greater level of "contrast" than my eyes can normally see. It was to the point that I didn't need to use my glasses to see, a major portion of the time while I was "tripping" The universe was fascinating, and beautiful on all if its levels. What more did I need?

Will I do it again? Maybe. (I tried Amanita Muscaria just a few days ago. Very different experience, almost an opposite sort of consciousness from Psilocybin Cubensis.)But my main reason for refusing to use psychedelics in the past, is because its too often that they become a crutch. If I do, it'll be more out of a shamanic angle, but even then, it will be sparse. I've had the experience. Sure I could probably learn more, but what I "needed" was taken care of. I'll know when the time is right to go back to that current, and see what it has to teach me. It's definitely not now.

But what is it that matters in life? I used to think I knew. I used to think that I understood... but life is life. It's easy to say it just IS, but it's so much more than that. It's everything.

Sometime after all the worst had hit me, after Ogy was there for me without question... beyond....anything I could have asked of anyone, we proposed to each other in a round about sort of way, and knew beyond a doubt that we could care for each other through the thick and the thin, sickness and health, crazy landlords, lack of water, and vomit caked sheets. Because what matters goes beyond whether we have food or water, beyond whether we're sick or healthy...it has to do with experience, it has to do with the spark of life itself, and how we cherish it...not how we fight and struggle through it.

What matters is something that we search for, something that we often think we've found, and then find we haven't....because its always changing, just as we are always changing. What matters is what matters. Maybe that's all there is to it...and that's ok by me. Despite that, I'll never stop searching, and when I do, it'll be because that too doesn't matter anymore...and that's ok too. Because its beyond that, beyond words, maybe even beyond essence, because we can only know what we know we know.

I only know that I'm back in Washington, that I'm safe, that I'm loved, and that I'm alive...and right now that's what matters, despite the hardships that are just over the horizon.

Ordeal in the Desert

This time tomorrow, I'll be leaving Phoenix and on a plane somewhere in transit to Elmira NY.  I don't know when I'll be back to the west coast. It could be a couple of months, it could be a year.  How did it happen? Phoenix happened.

Promises made and broken by smooth talking serpents happened. On one hand, I feel like I should never have come here, but at the same time I've learned a great deal about myself, and how far my intuition goes with keeping me safe from human predators. Am I safe?  Yes. Did I have to make sacrifices to be safe? Yes. But I discovered a whole other world that will add layers to my ability to keep me safe. I viewed the dark underbelly, I stared into the abyss and I came out changed, but whole and unbroken.

Phoenix is not a safe place for modeling work, of any kind, let alone the kind that I primarily do. Lesson learned. While I did meet a couple of decent people, the majority of people were out to hurt me, to use me, because to them I wasn't a person. There was no remorse, just like when I dealt with that sociopath up near Tacoma last August...and while I have grown wiser and stronger since that encounter, and was able to protect myself, I saw the dark collective underbelly that exists here.
There's some indication that I may have narrowly avoided becoming a human trafficking statistic. I'm starting to see why people seem to think that what I do for a living is so dangerous- because out here it is.

Not everywhere is the shining bastion of human rights and gender equality that exists in the Pacific Northwest. I knew that the modeling industry in California was morally corrupt, but I didn't know that it extended into Arizona- Phoenix is viewed as an extension of LA when it comes to the modeling industry (and porn industry) out here. It should also be no surprise that California has one of the highest human trafficking rates in the country. Considering that, and Arizona's serious lack of protection from it, I expected Phoenix to have some creepy people, some unsavory types, everywhere does....but it goes deeper.

Girls wanting to be models in California and Arizona are a dime a dozen, and if you aren't willing to get fucked for your fame, your chances of getting work are drastically reduced, and they might try to fuck you, literally and figuratively whether you like it or not.

For such a supposedly religious, and "god fearing" state, Arizona is nothing but deals with the devil all the way down, and he comes well-dressed, whispering sweet dreams in your ear, promising you the world, and all the money you could ever want. I've seen the face of evil, and every time it wears a smile.

I was warned months ago, that I needed to up my efforts to move out of modeling work as my sole means of supporting myself, that I needed to start working on my arts, and working with Sekhmet to protect myself, to balance myself, and I did. But it wasn't enough. I lacked the direction and motivation to seriously move forward. Here, I spent a month and a half dodging shady modeling "agencies" who never gave me a name, hours every day trying to separate the real people from the ones who just wanted to hurt me.

Prospecting for work has always been difficult, but this took everything to a whole new level. I realized that even the people who were willing to meet me in person at the Denny's or Starbucks before setting up any work, were still a serious risk to my safety. The utterly terrifying reality is that sociopaths will meet you for coffee. They will buy your lunch, they may seem like completely normal people until you get into a closed room with them. They will feel no regret or remorse for harming you, or trying to, because they have it in their heads that somehow you aren't a person, or that you "owe" them, so they can do what they want with you. They may try to be your "friend" and push you slowly farther and farther out of your comfort zone. You give them even a little bit of slack, and they'll take the reigns and the whole horse. The thing is, to them its you who have the problem, you and everyone else in the world who won't let them have what they want.

Sometimes the warnings in my mind would be loud. Sometimes it was almost like watching a scary movie, where you know the monster is behind the door, and you yell "No! Don't go in there!" except it was always up to me whether I opened that door, the monster was beckoning me with a wad of money, and I could hear the voices warning me, all at the same time. There were a couple of times I knew I could handle things if they went sour, but always the question on my mind was "is the money really worth more than my safety?" and the answer was always no, and I was forced to change my approach. I began working more with local painting groups, and though the pay was much lower, that's when I finally started to meet good people.


I started focusing more on my art, and I was now motivated to start pursuing jewelry design again. I spent hours with sculpting programs on my laptop, and I was determined to dedicate my first couple pieces to the gods who have stood by my side, and protected me with their guidance...and with my newfound motivation, and my success in creating viable prototypes, I've decided to move to the East Coast to be with Ogy, and will be focusing on minimizing my need to support myself with modeling.

What you see here, is a sample of what I've been working on the past couple of weeks. Both of these designs will be for sale, in copper, bronze, and silver. This is a simulation of what these pieces will look like in these various metals. I'm still in the process of procuring the materials I need to actually make these in a physical medium, but barring any serious issues with production, this will be a reality within the next month or two at most:

 

I have many more designs I've been working on, and once I have the materials needed (and the demand) I will also be willing to use 22k gold in production as well. I will be beginning with bronze, and will eventually expand into copper and sterling silver.

It was a need for direction, to grow up and learn to support myself that drove me into modeling work in the first place, and now that I found a need to grow and find direction again, I feel that I'm on the cusp of a life changing choice again. I don't know if this is just related to my decision to try to pursue jewelry design as a career, or if its related to the fact that I'm traveling to the east coast to do it, and don't know when I'll return to the west coast again, let alone Washington....

What I do know is that I have gone through an incredible transformation in this past six months, and that since Ogy became a part of my life, any feeling of being alone has vanished. Distance hasn't hurt our relationship, if anything its shown me how strong my emotions truly are for this person who crashed into my life and helped me to transform it, and myself into something better, and opened my eyes to the depths of emotion that are possible.

I once thought that relying on others was a weakness. I thought it was just a good way for me to get hurt...but I didn't know what was out there. It is possible to grow, to flourish, to find someone to share your soul with who will support you and help you find your inner strength. So I'll leave you with this song that I found the other day, that I feel reflects that love, strength, and trust that I am releasing myself to. Because I know that I am safe, I am strong, and I can do anything that I put my mind to. Tomorrow night the ordeal will be over, and once again, I'll be able to breathe.

Onward and Outward

Within the next few hours, I will be departing for Phoenix.

The last week has been busy. I've been packing, moving boxes around, cleaning, going through drawers and storage containers and following old roads down memory lane. Some of the memories have been good, others remind me of the past and people that I've cut myself from. My mind is constantly a flurry of activity, looking at everything and how it fits together, analyzing myself and my place within the world.

In this moment, I feel like I'm standing on the precipice of something. A chapter of my life is closing, as I give up my place of living, and herd the majority of my belongings into a 5x7 storage unit, as this room looks less and less like it belongs to me as my things leave it- an empty shell, a place of potential for someone else to take my place here. This is no longer my home, but that doesn't scare me. Somehow it instead gives me hope.

I'll have a lot of time to think about where I'm going and what I'm doing, while I'm traveling. The desert has always been a place of healing for me, a place for new beginnings. The pacific northwest with its towering trees, forests lined with moss and ferns, whispering creeks, and pounding waterfalls is my home...but the desert is where I go to be reborn.

I have some work booked out that way already, and hope to have more soon as well. I expect to be arriving on the 8th, barring any issues with the van I'll be traveling in, or any issues crossing the Mojave. Fingers crossed that everything will go as planned there.

I'll likely have a lot of free time on my hands, so if anyone who reads this happens to be in the Phoenix area, hit me up and lets meet for coffee or something.

For once I feel like I'm going towards something instead of running away from something else. I'm running towards my stability, a stronger foundation, my future... and when I return to Washington,  I'll have the resources I need to get a place for my love and I, and to bring him here at last. I'm looking at the possibility of moving to Tacoma- a nice middle ground between Olympia and Seattle, as well as the home of one of the photo studios I frequently work at already.

So when I pack the last of my things away, and turn my back on this place I've called home since September, it won't be with regret. It will be silent, with purpose, and a smile of knowing for the future that I will create with my Will and my own two hands.

How I Almost Broke Olive Garden

Yesterday I went to the Olive Garden, and having been thinking a lot about art lately, I was admiring the interior sculpture and decorations in the building while the friend I came with, had run to the bathroom. I specifically noted the lion heads carved in relief, peering out of the walls from above the columns framing the lobby. I wondered to myself while I waited “are they plaster, or are they something else?” I didn’t know if anyone who worked there would have any answers, but I figured I would give it a shot.

I leaned over from my spot waiting on the bench, and I told one of the employees standing behind the pulpit-like reception area that I had an odd question for him, and proceeded to ask my question. He craned his head backwards, and looked up… and it seemed as if he had never looked up before. He soon agreed with me that they probably were plaster, but I noticed he couldn’t stop looking up after that. Other employees noticed, and soon they were looking up as well.

A small mob of people then gathered, all remarking on how they had never noticed the lion heads…or the other little decorations throughout the building. One woman was absolutely giddy as she realized that there were elegant lion head decorations in varying sizes throughout the reception area and into the dining area. It was as if I had suddenly turned a restaurant into an art gallery with a simple question.

There was a time I would have been afraid to ask a question so completely outside of that employees role…mainly out of fear of being seen as stupid for asking for some reason.  Over the past year, I’ve been gaining a great deal more confidence and nonchalance- I’ve got no real reason to care about what other people might think about my eccentricies, its better to just be myself and speak my mind (usually anyway, sometimes my mind is a VERY politically incorrect sort of place)

I wonder what would have happened if it had actually been busy at that point. Would I have broken their system? Would they have been so busy looking up like children seeing the sky for the first time, that their duties would have been forgotten? They were so suddenly lost in their own world when something was introduced to them that made them wonder about something, that made them see an extra dimension to the place they worked that they never noticed before. For a moment, they were individuals, laughing and smiling, and trading jokes, and not cogs in a corporate machine.

The power of a question is absolutely amazing sometimes. If you ask someone a question, psychologically it makes that person feel like you value their opinion. It makes them feel “important” and usually it makes them wonder about the answer themselves if they don’t know the answer. It’s an easy way to flip someone’s world upside down, especially if you’re presenting them with new information entirely.

What does this have to do with magic? I think it has to do a lot with magic. It has to do with how easily things can be missed by people, and how easily perceptions can be changed. A simple question likely changed the entire day for the people who were working there. It made adults into curious children. It made their lives a little bit more interesting, and showed them if only for a moment just how much you can miss that is right in front of you.

It isn’t so much an exercise in magic itself, as it is in psychology, and how that plays a part in the types of people who become magicians. I really do wonder now if people really don’t look up normally. Is this the kind of mentality that separates the magically minded from the average person?

I guess I can use this to segway into a similar story. Back when I lived in Portland, and my lizard was about a couple of feet long, I had him out with me during the summer months quite a bit. Sometimes I walked him on his leash downtown, and other times I sat down on benches with him right next to me, so we could sun ourselves.

I was sitting at the bus stop with him once, and a lady moves to sit down right next to me, almost on top of my lizard. I politely stop her, and when she realizes what she almost did, she backed up a couple of feet- she had thought my lizard was a purse. She saw the color of leather, and his tail, as a strap, and her mind filled in the rest to create an illusion of what experience told it was there. I have had that same exact reaction a number of times- they all think he’s a purse, because they aren’t actually looking. At some point they stopped looking, stopped experiencing the world around them, and only saw the world they expected to be there.

I had other people flat out denying that my lizard could be “real” and had to be some kind of toy or something, when he was sitting right on my shoulder, flicking his tongue out and looking at people. The mind is terribly good at denying what is right in front of it.

Sometimes what you think is a purse is actually a lizard, and sometimes all it takes to see something new in the world is to actually open your eyes.

Home

 

Starting in April 5th, I will no longer have a place of residence. I will be using this time to travel extensively for work, saving up money for several months worth of rent for when I return to Washington, and to draw, paint, and reflect on what matters to me most in my life and how I'll be getting there. I'll be staying with friends, and traveling across the country...all of which brings me to the thoughts I've been having the past few days on what the idea of "home" is to me, and how it shapes how I view the world and the situations I'm cast into. 

Home is something carried in the heart. It isn’t a physical thing. It isn’t something you can see, smell, taste, or touch. It isn’t something you can grasp with your hands only to have it taken away from you. Home is an emotion. It’s something we grasp with the fibers of our soul, and only we can remove ourselves from that place. If one truly knows what it is to be, this is something that can be understood. 

Without the meaning we give it, our lives mean nothing. We fight, we struggle, we die, all for the sake of survival…because no matter how much we may sometimes feel worthless, there’s a part of us that knows that we’re worth it, if only to ourselves. This is my experience at least. 

Growing up in California, I often wished I could find “home” it was something I longed for, something I wished I could understand. I ran from the place I was expected to call home, more times than I can count. I found solace in travel, in continually moving forward. It was something that gave me strength. Maybe because in wandering aimlessly, I was able to find comfort in my own sense of home-less-ness. 

It took me losing…..so much throughout my life for me to understand that the only sure sense of home you can hold onto, is carried within the self. Places can be taken from you, people can oust you from places where you lay your head, and territories can be taken by the strongest… but who can take you from yourself but you? Who can take the beauty of the world from you? Who can take from the world the beauty in the reflection of a solitary raindrop? Who can take from you the heavens, with all its wonders? 

I have lost nothing. My heart may hurt from time to time, but the fact that I can feel it at least means that it still belongs to me. What is life except what we make of it? I can spend my time worrying, or I can spend my time doing. I know one will get me somewhere, while the other leaves unanswered questions, and something to be desired. I know there’s nothing to do but to move forward, and to know that there are people in my life who I treasure, and who treasure me. I am not alone, and I have lost nothing. 

Soon I begin a new journey, but in the end I know that I will be stronger and wiser for it, and that in just a couple of months, this weary heart will be warmed by a loving embrace once more. 

Down the Rabbit Hole

I came down to Portland a little over a week ago for work, and found that I was unable to find a ride back up as soon as I intended to.  While I was a little upset about this at first, and about the cancellations I had to deal with, but with a little bit of work I was able to turn the situation around. I managed to use it as an opportunity to start marketing myself in a place I hadn't lived in for about two years. Portland really isn't that far from where I call home these days, and I managed to make some business connections that should hopefully lead to future work.

While in Portland I manged to spend some time around some friends I hadn't seen in a while, got some work in town, and eventually managed to make my schedule line up with my previous cancellations. I've noticed that when I have goals in mind, and the motivation to push myself forward, work almost always seems to find me. When I wasn't working with photographers and videographers, I was working on logo designs. Am I making a lot all at once? No, but still the work is coming in, I'm making business connections left and right, and I'm keeping myself busy to the point that it's almost overwhelming.

I'm lucky in that the majority of people I know and am close to, are also magic-users, or at very least familiar and open to the concepts involved. This has also allowed me to work on my magical healing skills on multiple people in the past month. I'm no miracle-worker, but I know enough about using elemental energies and my Will, that I can at least usually soothe pains, and potentially speed up the healing processes.

For years I lived with someone who while open to magic, was never open to having it used on them for whatever reason, even for healing purposes. I don't have this problem with the person I'm in a relationship with now thankfully, and this has allowed me to stretch my magical muscles a bit more than I'm used to these days. Not only that, but its helped reinforce the idea that "yes" I AM doing something when I lay my hands on someone and bind their wounds with energy, or help their headaches, or loosen sore muscles.

When you're practicing magic outside of a group, there's only so much that you can see to reinforce the fact that you're actually doing something other than waving your hands around and deluding yourself. Its when others notice, when others tell you sincerely that you helped make their foot stop hurting, or somehow (at least temporarily) helped their headache.  There's something powerful about that, about the idea that "this person experiences this too!" along with the idea that somehow I was able to help this person, this friend who trusted me.

Results in magic are often internal, and I think this is because on some level people are afraid to say that its more than just "in their head" because of the extra implications that holds. We try to put magic and our experiences with it in a little box that explains exactly how and why these things happen. Some of us try to explain it with science, some of us try to explain it with religion, but the fact of the matter is, regardless of reason, magic exists, and we all have the power to influence our realities on levels that many may even be afraid of acknowledging. 

I struggled for years with the idea that magic, that entities, were somehow both internal and external forces. It was easier to believe that it was just my own subjective reality, and that this reality somehow helped me. These days I feel it goes far beyond that, and that if my magic is somehow just existing within my own subjective reality, then there would be no reason for others who exist and have their own realities to experience the manifestation of my magic in their lives at all.

This means that if it purely existed within my subjective reality, that no one else would be affected by it, but this isn't the case. People are affected when I work magic on them, even the ones who originally may not have expected anything to happen at all. This means that magic is objective, that its viewable, and in some cases the results are even tangible. 

I don't consider myself fantastic at what I do when it comes to magic. Its been a lot of trial and error and guesswork with different techniques. I have gotten burned before, but you can only really learn sometimes by touching the hot stove and realizing "yes, that is hot, yes it does burn, I shouldn't do that." Magic isn't safe, but life inherently isn't safe either. Its a big scary world out there, and a lot of people want to just live out of their labeled boxes, without ever looking outside of them. They play in the sand, but never look up and realize that there's a sky. It's not for everyone, but its there for those who have the courage to look, and decide for themselves. 

Its your reality after all, isn't it?