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1. Altered Consciousness

I think I've always instinctively known that there is more than one reality, and more than one level of awareness or consciousness. My parents had a series of Time-Life books about the 'Old West', they were bound in faux saddle leather covers & were full of pictures. My favorite one of the collection was about the Native American tribes, and I still remember the painting of a Sun Dance - a young brave hanging from a pole, suspended by hooks in his chest... and the text explaining the purpose of the Sun Dance and vision quests and giveaways. It even made brief mention of how medicine men would put on costumes so they could become wolves and drive the buffalo to waiting hunters. There were also quite a few movies out in the early 80s that dealt with the levels of consciousness and shape-shifting - Altered states (I think Flatliners was a slightly more expensive knock-off of Altered States), Wolfen (which I still think is one of the best movies/books about werewolves ever created), The Cat People, The Dead Zone etc. After my own death, my research became a little more sophisticated than me trying to shape-shift into a werewolf when I was 8.

When I was a kid, I was mainly trying to prove or disprove that other realities existed (and turn into a werewolf). I felt like the Universe was keeping a giant secret from everyone and only a privileged few knew how to get there (at that age, I didn't understand fully the process of disseminating knowledge, or that most people think that occult knowledge is bullshit - the information was out there, but no one cared). Now I know the other realities exist - I used to have easy access to those other levels - it was just a matter of changing the focus of my eyes and mind. Now I have to struggle my way there, and sometimes I can't get there at all, I'm just sort of stuck here. So my main focus on ASCs is trying to open the door again and make my passage into the trance-like states easier.

2. Ariadne (I love the legend of this girl/goddess; what of her do you relate to?)
I can't, in all honesty, say that I can relate to Ariadne... I came to Her feet as a worshipper via Her consort, Dionysus. (I'm heavily connected to Dionysus through alcohol. Alcohol is one of the easiest and fastest ways for me to reach an involuntary ASC, hah. If I'd been an ancient Grecian, I would have been a maenad.) The first time I saw the little Goddess of Crete was in the statue of the serpent priestess - holding aloft a snake in each hand, her eyes wide in a poppy-induced trance. My main connection to Ariadne is because She is a serpent-mother. Every time I pick up Ed or Nessie I'm reaching back through time to Her priestesses. There isn't gobs of information on Ariadne, and I know She's a Goddess in Her own right, not just as consort of Dionysus. I get this gut feeling that She's connected somehow to Cybele, another poppy-eyed serpent-mother - there is a lion on Ariadne's headdress - why lions in Crete?

3. Ayida Wedo/Weddo- (have you done much research into the Rainbow Serpent? If so or even if not, I have a book I may give you about the subject)

Damballah Wedo and Ayida Wedo (also Aida Hwedo) are kind of the parents of the lwa... and unlike other lwa, who are basically human in form, the Serpent and the Rainbow are snakes. I like deities who like, or who are, snakes. Even for Ed & Nessie, there's no separation between 'ball python' and the Danh Gbwe (Great Serpent) of the Dahomey people. I'm not a child of Damballah or Ayida Wedo (that I know of), but I always give them respect because they watch over us all. Some speculation has been made that Damballah & Ayida Wedo are the Haitian incarnations of Mawu & Lisa, the Fon mother & father Gods. In Haitian Vodou, Damballah and Ayida Wedo are very pure and removed (I think Damballah actually got disgusted with people & his lwa children at some point & fled into the skies), Damballah more so than Ayida, have little or no contact w/humans, especially not dead ones, and their temples are kept immaculately clean and they are offered only the purest of white or colorless foods. In Africa, they are said to carry people to the land of the dead.

4. Eclectic Paganism
A good witch is eclectic - she'll steal anything that works - Ellen Cannon Reed

Nine words the Eclectic Rede attest:
Steal what works, fix what's broke, fake the rest. - Steve Storm

Q: What is the difference between an Eclectic and an ethical Eclectic?
V: References

This is probably the closest thing to a label I can stick on myself to help others understand what it is that I am and what it is that I do. I still end up having to explain myself a lot because no one ever seems to know what eclectic means, except other Eclectic Pagans, and they never admit to being Eclectic Pagans in public.

5. Future Lives
A lot of focus is put on unscrambling past lives, but I'm not really too interested in my past lives (except the one when I was a Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon) because they are in my past. I've brought bits & pieces of those lives with me, but that's about it. I am deeply concerned in bringing the more important bits of this life with me into the next life. It's why I started this journal - to leave a record for me in my next life. Of course, I don't know if teh Internets will even exist during my next lifetime, and I still don't know if you can come back in a time previous to the one you were living in - the whole linear timeline where reincarnation is concerned is kind of a mystery. I want to remember the important things about Life, the Universe and Everything so I don't have to fight so hard to relearn it next time around. My biggest fear is that my obsession with money in this lifetime is going to stick me in some shallow, materialistic rich person's life in the next lifetime, in which I will be a mindless consumer and fashionista... sort of akin to coming back as Paris Hilton or Nicole Richie. Do not want! I think it probably would be preferable to come back as a short-lived cockroach than some anorexic bobble-headed bimbette with a chihuahua in her purse. I worry about Karma, too. Will my trying to earn merit and good Karma somehow negatively influence my Karma because I'm trying to earn merit for selfish purposes? Is the fact that I wonder what my Karma Credit Rating looks like every time I performa a good deed affect me negatively simply because I am thinking about the Karma I'm earning? And I still have this nasty habit of earning bad Karma on purpose - namely because I can't abide stupid people and Scientologists, and my inner Coyote can't keep its mouth shut. I used to just work on not coming back at all, but I've given up all hope of ascension or enlightenment because at heart, I am a bad person and I know I'm going to have to come back, probably a few more million times, before I get it right.

6. Poppy Z. Brite (I Heart Ghost)

I love me some PZB. I discovered her books via the Abyss line of books that included new horror fiction. I had picked up a couple that were really, really good and Lost Souls was included in the list of 'if you enjoyed blah-de-blah, you might also enjoy' books. I fell in love with Ghost and Steve and Nothing and Christian (oooh, Christian) and Zyllah. So I've gobbled up almost all of her books... (I haven't gotten to the ones about the cafe in N'Awlins because, well, it's not really horror) Wormwood is a collection of short stories I can read and re-read and re-read - I love the one about the zombies in India... and Exquisite Corpse was just incredible (even if everytime I read it, I picture Imus as the radio shock-jock... ugh.). I think Anne Rice should have retired the minute Lost Souls came out - every time I read something by Rice, I compare it to that book & always find it wanting. I wish Poppy Z. Brite was my girlfriend, lol.

7. Tao

This is probably the hardest concept to vocalize... Tao is the Way... all things in balance, yin/yang, day/night, awake/asleep. It's the recognition that every action does indeed have a reaction, even if it's not exactly opposite or equal. Everything we think, everything we do, everything we are, creates a reaction somewhere else, sometimes seen, sometimes unseen. And everything we don't do has a reaction. I've been studying Buddhism, and along w/it, Zen, Shinto and Tao. I'm trying to give up the chaos and drama of life & trying to live life more effortlessly, like water, flowing around obstacles instead of trying to batter them down. The doctrines behind Taoism are a little too regimented and dogmatic for me to fully embrace... my version of Tao is pretty much wholely based on The Tao of Pooh :)


Look, it's a goldfish! ---> <>< I found it while using tags to make my font boldface. ( < b > & < /b> )It may have been laying under the couch for some time, so I wouldn't eat it if I were you.

Nature is really a wonderful thing. Apparently, since I can't get out into nature, it has decided to come to us. Spiders, a praying mantis... and now there is a queen wasp building a nest outside our front door. Ah, thank you, nature, for blessing us with a queen wasp. Please take her back now!