Friday, October 31, 2003

Post Halloween Amusement

Which Anne Rice Vampire are you?


I'm Armand...figures.

Samhain Musings

Spent my Halloween night as a wage slave,but dressed as Death. How fitting. Now it is Novemeber 1st, the Celtic New Year. A time for reflection,divination and discourse with the unseen worlds. Leave milk and bread out for the faerie folk, read tarot cards and have lovely,lovely dreams. The world will come back at us with a vengeance soon enough. Enjoy what respite can be found. Here in the time between the worlds...

Thursday, October 30, 2003

Cartomancy of the Day (divination with playing cards)

Queen of Swords

A dark woman, attractive,helpful,strong. Can be tempermental.

Six of Spades

Perseverence brings improvement. Betterment through continued effort.

myth of the day

detritus

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

Tarot Cards of the Day

Five of Swords (Defeat): A success earned through personal degradation. Separation from friends brought about by an unfeeling and coldly calculated act. Temporary victory tainted by dishonor and providing fuel for eventual defeat.

Seven of Wands (Valor): Standing courageously for your beliefs in the face of adversity. Fear of failure overcome by the will to succeed. Great obstacles met with heroism and determination. Inner strength brought to bear at a critical moment.

myth of the day

detritus

Myth of the Day:Odysseus

by James Hunter

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Odysseus (called Ulysses in Latin) was the son of Laertes and was the ruler of the island kingdom of Ithaca. He was one of the most prominent Greek leaders in the Trojan War, and was the hero of Homer's Odyssey. He was known for his cleverness and cunning, and for his eloquence as a speaker.

Odysseus was one of the original suitors of Helen of Troy. When Menelaus succeeded in winning Helen's hand in marriage, it was Odysseus who advised him to get the other suitors to swear to defend his marriage rights. However, when Menelaus called on the suitors to help him bring Helen back from Troy, Odysseus was reluctant to make good on his oath. He pretended to have gone mad, plowing his fields and sowing salt instead of grain. Palamedes placed Odysseus' infant son in front of the plow, and Odysseus revealed his sanity when he turned aside to avoid injuring the child.

However reluctant he may have been to join the expedition, Odysseus fought heroically in the Trojan War, refusing to leave the field when the Greek troops were being routed by the Trojans, and leading a daring nocturnal raid in company with Diomedes. He was also the originator of the Trojan horse, the strategem by which the Greeks were finally able to take the city of Troy itself. After the death of Achilles, he and Ajax competed for Achilles' magnificent armor; when Odysseus' eloquence caused the Greeks to award the prize to him, Ajax went mad and killed himself.

Odysseus' return from Troy, chronicled in the Odyssey, took ten years and was beset by perils and misfortune. He freed his men from the pleasure-giving drugs of the Lotus-Eaters, rescued them from the cannibalism of the Cyclopes and the enchantments of Circe. He braved the terrors of the underworld with them, and while in the land of the dead Hades allowed Thiresias, Odysseus' mother, Ajax and others to give him adivice on his next journey. They gave him important advice about the cattle of the sun (which Apollo herds), Scylla and Charybdis and the Sirens. From there on the travels were harder for Odysseus, but they would have been much worse of it wasn't for the help of the dead.

With this newly acquired knowledge, he steered them past the perils of the Sirens and of Scylla and Charybdis. He could not save them from their final folly, however, when they violated divine commandments by slaughtering and eating the cattle of the sun-god. As a result of this rash act, Odysseus' ship was destroyed by a thunderbolt, and only Odysseus himself survived. He came ashore on the island of the nymph Calypso, who made him her lover and refused to let him leave for seven years. When Zeus finally intervened, Odysseus sailed away on a small boat, only to be shipwrecked by another storm. He swam ashore on the island of the Phaeacians, where he was magnificently entertained and then, at long last, escorted home to Ithaca.

There were problems in Ithaca as well, however. During Odysseus' twenty-year absence, his wife, Penelope, had remained faithful to him, but she was under enormous pressure to remarry. A whole host of suitors were occupying her palace, drinking and eating and behaving insolently to Penelope and her son, Telemachus. Odysseus arrived at the palace, disguised as a ragged beggar, and observed their behavior and his wife's fidelity. With the help of Telemachus and Laertes, he slaughtered the suitors and cleansed the palace. He then had to fight one final battle, against the outraged relatives of the men he had slain; Athena intervened to settle this battle, however, and peace was restored.

Related information

Pronunciation

{oh-dis'-ee-uhs}

Images

Odysseus

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A little Experiment...

Try typing the name of any well known Greek mythological figure into Google, and odds are it'll turn out to be the name of a web application. Just as a general rule of thumb.

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Henna time is here again...

Or is that too much information? I'm sitting here with my head marinating in organic products which are intended to turn it a subtle shade of red. I feel like a beef tenderloin.

Another one for the favorite authors list...

Nick Hornby

Kurt

Kurt Cobain, Journals...
Just, as it claims, the photocopied, handwritten notebooks of Kurt Cobain, sometimes funny, sometimes insightful, sometimes insane. Contains playlists for mix tapes and his mom's stroganoff recipe alongside original lyrics, letters to friends and philosophic expounditure. There is an angry,tragic irony to the journal entries about how wrong everyone was for painting him as a suicidal addict, guilt ridden at the prospect of success.

Moonpoem #2

My moonlight was weightless

it bore me aloft

knew my sadness before it had a name

left me sleepless and awaiting answers

from one who slept days away in paralell madness

Lunacy is the goddess' kiss

her mark upon your brow

alien and strange

She brings you words you must be rid of

and dreams you cannot shake

and showers you in broken glass

as you drift back into oblivion

And if I am an ocean wave poised to drown you...step back and listen for my voice in seashells...

Eve

Eve of the poisoned apple

has crimson lips to be bitten

and crisp white flesh

that tastes of

Death

and the sweetness of

her ruin

If you were to cut her in two

at the center

her heart would be a pentagram

a magic older than time or sin

and be you Adam or serpent or

fallen angel

still it tastes the same

And she is

not the root of all evil

Evil is in the eye of the beholder

but no man's eye can hold her

Myth of the Day:The Legend of Herne

"There is an old tale goes that Herne the Hunter,

Sometime a keeper here in Windsor Forest,

Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,

Walk round about an oak, with great ragg'd horns;

And there he blasts the tree, and takes the cattle,

And makes milch-kine yield blood, and shakes a chain

In a most hideous and dreadful manner.

You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know

The superstitious idle-headed eld

Receiv'd, and did deliver to our age,

This tale of Herne the Hunter for a truth. "

The Merry Wives of Windsor

(Act 4 Scene 4)

Wiliaml Shakespeare

Golden Dawn Tarot Cards Of The Day

Princess of Cups

Creative, fertile energy that has the power to take on substance or form. Unceasing power to generate images and ideas. Energy like that of a waterfall. A young woman who is sweet, gentle, kind, poetic, imaginative, artistic, and dreamy. Imaginative and dreamy, at times indolent, yet courageous if roused. (If ill-dignified: she is indolent, selfish, and luxurious.)

7 of Pentacles

Unprofitable speculation and employment, promises of success unfulfilled, disappointment. Loss of apparently promising future. Hope deceived and crushed. Little gain for much labor. Misery, slavery, necessity and baseness. A cultivator of land, and yet a loser thereby. (Sometimes it denotes slight and isolated gains with no fruits resulting therefrom, and of no further account, though seeming to promise well. According to dignity.)

Click on it, and they donate food to the hungry...it's that simple.

The Hunger Site

Monday, October 27, 2003

Celtic Radio links from Live365...my favorites are "Shite and Onions," a Celtic Punk station and the Fergus MacCool show ("brought to you by Tasteless Choice coffee...") but there are many more. How come nobody loves the Pogues but me?

The Temple of Hecate Online : Site Map

The Temple of Hecate Online : Site Map: " Back to the Main Page"

Online virtual temple to the Goddess of the Underworld (who is, incidentally, the Myth Of the Day
Ogham reading of the Day:



Heather



Dreams and luck



You have dreams for your life, but perhaps are not doing what you can to make them real. See if there are ways you can weave your dreams into your daily life. You are now in, or are about to enter, a time of good fortune; enjoy and benefit from it!



Heather, the eighteenth Ogham tree, has long been considered lucky. Like several others of the Ogham trees, it is low-growing but has woody stems, fitting an ancient definition of a tree. Most varieties of heather are evergreen, and the flowers are symbolic of luck in love. Heather sprigs can be used as a springy bedding, too, and are said to bring good dreams. -This Ogham is sometimes associated with mistletoe as well.





Yew



Change and regeneration



You are in a time of deep transformation. Many changes are happening, and your life will be quite different afterward. These changes cannot be either rushed or stopped- so take the time you need for them, and permit yourself to feel all the related emotions, negative and positive. Difficult though things may be now, new opportunities and possibilities await.



Yew is the last of the original twenty Ogham trees. Just as birch stands for new beginnings, yew symbolizes death and regeneration; the old passing away to make room for the new. As the yew ages, some branches die but the whole survives- some for 2000 years! Its wood is tough, often used for bows. The challenge of the yew is to deal with the sorrow that a deep transformation can cause; even when the new is welcome, the old can be sorely missed.

MythHome: Greek Gods and Their Associates

MythHome: Greek Gods and Their AssociatesHekate

( Hecate )

Greek goddess associated with the underworld and with magic. Not mentioned in Homer, she is believed to have originated in Caria in southwest Anatolia. According to Hesiod she was the daughter of the Titan Perses and the nymph Asteria. Elsewhere she is said to be the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. She was also a goddess of crossroads and waysides, and pillars known as Hekataea were commonly erected at crossroads and doorways,perhaps to ward off evil. She was especially associated with travel by night, although it is not clear whether she was regarded as the protectress of night travellers or their chief peril. Hekate was also considered a patron of Medea and of witches,and she had an occult following among women in Thessaly, where she was regarded as a moon goddess. She assisted in the search for Persephone after her abduction by Hades. In this connection, as well as in connection with her role in night travel, she was depicted bearing a torch. In later representations, she was shown as having three bodies, particularly in the Hekataea which allowed her to keep watch over all roads at once. Her epithets included Enodia, a reference to her role as a goddess of waysides, and Trioditis, a reference to her role as a triform goddess of crossroads.

Sunday, October 26, 2003

Ger is one of the runes that touches on the cycles of the year, in this case the fall harvest. These cycles are eternal, which is represented in the rune by the fact that it is unchanged by reversal. Ger can represent pregnancy or other forms of fruitfulness, and is especially indicative of the cycles of providence and karma - that which has been sown is now being reaped. This rune can also represent the cycles of wealth, for crops were frequently a sign of wealth.



Fehu is the rune of cattle, the symbol of wealth in the old Norse civilization. Since Fehu is the first rune in Frey's aett, it is a rune of fertility as well. As seen here reversed, it can represent barrenness or the loss of wealth. Some interpret Fehu as representing children, in which case the reversal may portend the distancing of a child from her or his parents.