![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
 |
42F and overcast today... and I'm still hearing songbirds out there, on the winter solstice.
I got the official letter of declination from AmeriSave this morning, and they refunded my application fee.
Not worth mentioning, except that it did come on the winter solstice itself, and thus, has set the tone for the year to come.
It was a year ago today that I had to leave work and get Dad out of the Strive rehab center, to bring him home.
I hoped that by now the crisis of his death would've been resolved and I'd have a clear path forward.
Instead, it looks to be a long slog through weeds and mud with no clear end.
But out in the back yard this morning I was happy to see that all the old eyesores are gone forever... the mulberries and brush pile... the delapidated sheds and rotting jungle gym... that horrible barbecue pit.
I would not be able to bear the sight of them now, if they were still there.
That's why I threw out the last of Mom's angels yesterday... because I cannot bear to look at those assinine little symbols of her god's providence... holy little guardians who protect people from harm.
My ass!
All the rest of their shit's getting thrown out, but I'm not wasting money on garbage stickers. It'll all just go in the bins, one load per week, through the winter.
And I'm thinking of burning their crucifixes in the fire pit... but I'll need some lighter fluid.
Their photos can go into boxes. I'll keep them, but I don't want to see their faces on my walls.
The good frames, I'll keep for my own use, and the ugly ones will get pitched.
People have different relationships with their parents, and for many those are bad relationships, and they become estranged long before death.
For me, it just feels like this terrible betrayal, because I did give a shit about them, and I did care for them in their old age... yet now, from beyond the grave they continue to hold me down and strangle any hope I can muster, for a future.
Their secret time bomb of a balloon payment could NOT have been timed better.
It went off in my face just three months after Dad's death, and has successfully destroyed any hope I had of financial security.
They got away without a scratch, but I had no time to prepare, and no warning.
Betrayal... is the only word for it.
So yeah, I want every trace of them out of my sight.
And I'm gonna stay here despite them.
And I'm gonna turn their christian household into the most pagan witch house on the block!
Maybe I can find some time this Christmas break to smudge and burn those crosses.
But I also need to ask myself about those junebugs.
Where were they, in all of this?
When the cats came along, it looked like they were from the cosmos.
And my job too... especially after I tried to leave it, and found them giving me a raise instead.
It seemed like this was all going somewhere.
As recently as Monday, I was being told the loan would close by weeks end!
I blew $700 on a lawyer who did nothing, and then another $500 on an appraiser for no reason.
I wasted all of November and December to accomplish nothing.
And now my credit score is dropping... I'm overdrafting... I'm thinking about food pantries, and SNAP again... and BMO is still looming over my life the same as always!
I guess even junebug magic is no match for the combined forces of corporate greed, and christo-fascism.
But I do have my Cartouche Cards back, so maybe I'll pull out that Scarab card for the smudging and the burning of the crucifixes.
It was actually that Scarab card... I remember now... that lead me to the whole idea of junebug magic.
Because in the book that accompanied the cards it talked about how scarabs were powerful talismans or whatever, and then later I found out that junebugs are scarabs.
At this point, a little witchcraft and ritual could not hurt.
Playing the material game, and praying to, as Tim's called it, "God, Grace, Grandma," did absolutely nothing.
I've got nothing to lose, and a four day weekend to ruminate about the past and the future.
Well...
I got all ready and left for work like normal.
And then half way there, I realized I did not have my PHONE!
So I turned around to go get it, realizing I could not even text anybody that I'd be late until I got back home, which was infuriating.
And traffic in the westerly direction along Montgomery road was a slow moving nightmare.
And then I began to picture how Yvette would react if I came back in the door 20 minutes after leaving.
She'd be thrilled, and expect a walk... and then be heartbroken if I, instead, just grabbed my phone out of the bathroom and bolted.
So when I got home I called in, saying I had to take my cat to the vet for an emergency, and it was a 3 hour wait.
And then we did go for that walk.
I wasn't planning on the catastrophic news about the mortgage getting in the way of my normal work schedule.
But fuck it!
I do deserve a day to mourn such a huge failure.
Well... I went ahead and made my prototype Devil's Calendar...
Brand new Aviator deck from Fiesta Food Mart, bought and modified tonight on the solstice itself... the actual start of the new orbit which it will track through 2024.
It'll hang there in the kitchen... I guess for as long as I live here.
Cards and card decks clearly figure quite largely in my self styled pseudo religion.
It started with an interest in Tarot cards, which are always of some interest to any teenager.
But back in the late 1980s, new age stuff was kinda seeing a revival.
It was the era referred to as, "The Satanic Panic."
It was also the peak era of the mall, and every mall had two or three bookstores... Walden Books, Krochs & Brentanos, etc.
And all those bookstores had sections dedicated to the occult, and to card decks... of which there were many.
Most decks were just versions of the tarot, but the Cartouche Cards were a completely novel deck of 25 cards, based on ancient Egyptian lore.
I came to love my Cartouche deck, because it was so original.
That inspired me years later to try and create my own divination deck, and I decided to base it on the playing card deck... because I figured that the playing cards had predated the tarot.
I created a hand drawn deck which I called, "Messenger Cards," where instead of being numbered, Ace ~ 10, they were numbered, 0 ~ 9.
The court cards were animals, representing the twelve signs of the zodiac... but I picked my own animals for them.
Like, Cancer was a turtle, and Scorpio was a stingray.
This was because I didn't care about the constellations themselves, just the idea that there were cardinal, fixed, and mutable, fire, air, earth, and water signs.
So the water signs were all aquatic animals, for example.
I did make four copies of that deck, but I don't think any of them survive.
In the modern day, for me, the playing cards are just a calendar to track the Earth's orbit around the sun.
I gave up on any idea that cards could actually divine the future, long ago.
But my present day pseudo religion IS very much nature based, and Earth's orbit... and the seasons that orbit creates... are central to it.
In a nutshell, the religion is about the circularity of life.
Sleep, is to winter, is to death, as waking, is to spring, is to birth.
So I believe that birth follows death... the same as spring follows winter, and waking follows sleep.
I picture the period after you die as being a kind of dream.
Our regular dreams have to do with the day that just passed, and can also delve into our past. And we can have good dreams or bad ones.
So, I think that after you die... that dreamy period is concerned with the life you just lived.
On the one hand, you get to reunite with souls who had passed before you.
And on the other hand, you get to see what's happening with the people you left behind.
And that's pretty standard stuff, right?
I don't believe in God, however... or in Heaven or Hell.
I think Jesus was a myth... there was never a real man named Jesus who did what was told of in the Bible.
He never taught anywhere, or had apostles, or was crucified or any of that.
The whole Bible is just a collection of myths, many ripped off from older religions based on... wait for it... the Sun and the solstices!
All three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, are bullshit.
But in the days before science came along... the idea of there being only one single, all powerful God... was revolutionary... and extremely effective at controlling people.
And we'll get to science below.
But back to Heaven & Hell...
I do think that once you've died, you are suddenly able to see everything in it's true perspective... meaning, you fully understand the ramifications of everything you did in life, and how it affected other people, and the world.
So... that kind of understanding could lead you to feel quite bad... especially for anything you set into motion that continues to bring suffering to those still living.
So... Hitler, for example... would not have had a very good time of it after dying.
For him, or any other powerful person responsible for mass suffering & death... and continued trauma & political discord for generations to come... such a keen understanding would very much be hell!
But it's not eternal.
Because birth follows death as waking follows sleep.
I do believe in reincarnation, but I don't think it's inevitable.
I think that for a very bad person... that hell probably lasts quite a while... and then reincarnation back to Earth is the only way out.
They have to go back and start over.
I think for others, it's a choice... but one they gravitate to eventually, because they can't shake their sense of guilt.
And then for still others, I think it's a thing they don't need to do, but just choose to do... either for the hell of it, or to go back and try to help people.
And then there's people who don't reincarnate at all... and maybe just... go explore the strange universe of worlds that exist in the afterlife?
I think that earthbound ghost-hood is probably another option.
Like you die and then you just refuse to move on, so instead you just wander the Earth.
And in that case, I don't think you get that understanding I mentioned above.
If you died being a bitter, biased grouch... you stay that way as a ghost.
And maybe, occasionally spirits of those who knew you will appear to invite you up into the afterworld.
And you either agree or refuse.
But either way, it's not final. Another shot will always come around.
All of this, of course, requires there to be a soul, and science really frowns on the idea of a soul.
So let's talk about science.
I do believe in both established science and the scientific method.
But where it stands on the soul... does leave some room.
Because on the one hand it would like to say that consciousness is simply chemical reactions within a brain... but it can't say for certain.
A soul that can survive bodily death, of course, is still frowned upon, but mainly because there appears to be no physical mechanism that would allow it to be possible.
My personal take is that there's just some other field... akin to the electromagnetic field, or the gravitational field... that the brain has evolved to interact with, in some way, on the quantum level... which stores your consciousness... outside the brain.
Like the way all your data is stored in the cloud.
Can your data survive the death of your phone?
Yes! You just get a new phone and get it all back.
So... I guess I believe your brain is just a phone. It's just hardware.
I also believe that one of the purposes of dreaming... which is another mystery to science... is to develop your non physical being.
In other words... it's kinda like death practice.
When you dream, you're exercising your soul, and it's ability to exist outside Earthly reality.
You're not really outside Earthly reality yet... most of the time?... but it's practice for that.
Let's see... what about the cosmos? Is that God?
Well, what I picture when I say, "cosmos," is more like... an intellect arising from the sum of all life on Earth?
It's an itellect, but not exactly an intelligence? Like... it knows things, and has awareness, but... it's also very fickle, and will often just ignore you.
So... the cosmos can give you some cats... but it can't... stop a Republican millionare from rejecting your home loan at the last second.
Something like junebug magic, then... would be like a collective junebug consciousness that can intercede on your behalf with the cosmos?
So... every junebug would be just an iteration of the collective junebug spirit, which would be a very powerful spirit because junebugs are beetles, and beetles are one of the most successful species on the planet.
They are also one of the most benevolent species... and particularly beloved by humans.
The Volkswagen Beetle, and the rock band, the Beatles, were two of the most insanely popular things of their sort in human history.
Junebugs in particular, seem to like humans back, because they hang out on our screens under our porch lights, and sometimes come inside to bumble around.
To rub the wing cases of a junebug... as my personal superstition goes... is to enter into a contract with the junebug consciousness... which is actually a lot like taking out a mortgage... where you're essentially saying, "I am in a jam! I need help with my life."
And then the collective junebug consciousness brings that to the cosmos, and... they get all down into the details of your existance (much like a mortgage) and prescribe some kind of plan for you... and then execute that plan.
But their definiton of help isn't the same as yours!
It's very detached and utilitarian... you will be helped out of your jam, but it will be extremely chaotic, and you will just have to deal with it.
So, this last time around, in 2022... I dont' think it's that the collective junebug spirit killed Dad...
I think it was more like, it saw that this guy was kinda trying to die for a while and I kept saving his ass... maybe keeping him around longer than he wanted to be.
That was definitely the feeling in August of 22, when I drove him to the ER despite his protesting, and he was found to be nearly at death's door, but was saved.
And then back at home, he was kinda pissed off!
He got back on his feet and back to his routines, but he was weirdly defiant after that.
And that continued until he broke his hip, four months later.
The cosmic stuff came into play just before that... in August.
First it was the appearance of Snoop & Prowly... who would be critical for mouse control just a few months later.
And having them, of course, lead to my needing a job... which also materialized instantly.
So, from the Junebug perspective... in May of 2022, they would've looked at everything and said, Okay, well... this guy's trying to die so that needs to happen!
This guy will get the house... which is overrun with mice, so he'll need cats... and a job, of course... and... well, these trees back here are about to die so knock one down so he finally takes care of that and his brush pile.
The dog's gotta stay, of course. She's perfectly healthy.
And... well, with his credit score and shit he should be fine!
They were, of course, responsible for the credit score, because if you rewind back to the last jam point, when I was still renting over on the west side...
Well, This guy's Mom's trying to die, so that needs to happen... and then he moves home with his Dad and saves money! Easy!
They just kinda bust up the log jams, rip off the bandaids, and create new opportunities which you are then forced into.
And new responsibilities you didn't necessarily want to undertake.
And hey! Maybe people die and your world gets turned upside down and you lose a few friends or whatever! Get over it!
So the question here would be... Did the mortgage fail because it was not part of that plan?
Or was it part of that plan, but failed because... high finance is not really in the wheelhouse of the cosmos.
Trees and cat's?... Yes!
Old people on the verge of crossing over? Sure!
Street level job opportunities?... We can do that!
Hidden financial bombs that were programmed to explode ten years ago... and how modern underwriters will choose to deal with them, given their perverted whims around the holidays?... Not so much!
The junebugs, I am guessing, did not see that coming.
So... on this night of the solstice... after calling in to work... and allowing myself to get a little unhinged, and ramble...
My theory is that the house itself is still too tinctured by the old energies of Mom & Dad as a couple... who lived here together for almost sixty years...
And Dad as a person... who lived here for damn near ninety years!
And there's also the energies of his parents... specifically his mother, who grew up here... and her mother... who moved in after marrying his grandfather, and died here fifty years later!
That's how far back the conservative, and Christian vibes began soaking into these timbers that surround me.
But the house itself predates all that by another 60 years.
Still in the family back then, but those first two generations, who built and lived within it were not conservative or churchy.
And I am not just some dude who showed up and moved in.
I'm part of that whole bloodline, and I grew up here too.
And I can say with some confidence that nobody has loved this house, or attended to it as much as I have, since my father's grandfather, who helped build it.
So, while the conservative and christian vibes have been soaking into the timbers for almost a century...
The house does remember it's roots!
I don't imagine that the house itself is fighting me.
I think the house and I have a healthy relationship, and it likes me.
But the vibes!...
That century's worth of vibes in this place, which have taken on a kind of astral body of their own, in the shape of the house, and their own zombie awareness that has formed little whiskers and tendrils out into the christian and conservative collective...
Those vibes are fighting me!
We'll call it the vibe monster... but the 100 year old vibe monster which has taken root here, rejects my claims to ownership of this place!
It reaches out into the unconscious and inspires men to stop me!...
sToP hIm fRoM reFinaNCe!.. bmO hArRisSs iS ouR MasTEr!.. geT hIm OUt!... brING bAcK micHAel & BARbaRa!
And Michael & Barbara may well be in the afterlife crying, "No! House vibe monster, no!"
But it can't hear them!
It only knows the thoughts and emotions they imprinted it with before they left!
So... if that's the case... then throwing out old garbage and repainting a couple rooms is NOT gonna cut it!
I need to engage in some serious, ritualistic witchcraft, to drive out the vibe monster!
We are not playing anymore!.. century old, conservative Christian vibe monster!
I just made and hung a devil's calendar in the kitchen... on the winter solstice so I have the high ground!
And I'm bringing out the big guns this year, baby!
Cards!.. smokey insense things!.. music!.. I dunno... weed!...
Trust me! I'll figure it out!
Oh!.. animal familars!
And the house is with me on this, vibe monster!
You never know!.. maybe I AM my father's grandfather reincarnated for the sole purpose in life of liberating my house from you, vibe monster!
If not, then he sent me!
Or... he chose me?
It doesn't matter!
I'm here!
It's mono e mono now, vibe monster... and we can go round and round!
In all seriousness, I do believe I'll find some solution in 2024... to staying here and survivng.
But my pseudo religion says... that cannot be planned until January begins.
The time between the winter solstice and Gregorian New Year's Day... is the time to just get a little crazy and do the spells.
Expel the foul vibes and signal boost the good magic!
Get back in tune with the cosmos, and get it on your side!
So, part of that will be transcribing bass lines in the studio, but... another part will be burning crucifixes.
Like you do.
°¦}
