Someone bought me a gift account, anonymously, so I've come back around to see if maybe that person resurfaces and to find out why. I'm always drawn in by the mysterious, I suppose.

Well, it gets to this point every couple of years or so. Here I am again. I'm not getting what I want out of a situation. I'm not getting something nourishing out of a routine. I spend more time on the internet reading silly crap and arguing with people on forums than I do digging up anything really enlightening and talking to the people who are valued friends.

It may just be that there inevitably comes a point in any experience where it turns into its opposite; that may just be the way of things in a dualistic world. To say the very least, our reality is in a constant state of flux, and often things that give us joy one day can become obsessive dangers to our mental health on another. I feel and realize that on some level my daily internet routing of checking different groups, news sites, blogs, and outlets of various media has become something of an unproductive habit and that I must transcend it until such a time occurs that I may need that sort of thing in my life again. Right now, I'm about to go back to school for the final time, and I feel a sense of deepening on an inward plane that needs more attention than any of the stuff I allow myself to be swept up in on a daily basis. I've been feeling as if I'm going through a period of intense metamorphosis, and it is not without its negative side effects. But it is something that must be endured, penetrated, transmuted, and reabsorbed into my being as valid experience that serves some ineffable purpose that I'm not entirely sure of how to define at this point.

So for now, it is so long to SG. It has become less of a tool to broaden myself and more of a crutch to waste away the time that I find myself faced with on a daily basis. Instead of running from that time, I want to move more fully into it, and find out what I should really be doing with it while I have it.

Peace.

It is said that a magician is his own worst enemy, and a victory over one's self is the greatest victory. I'm finding this maxim to be more and more true. After realizing that my habit of playing a certain game is devouring most of my spare time and life energy, with little to no reward for the price I pay, I have decided to quit the activity.

Yet as I come in from my walk this morning, the urge to go back to the old habitual ways is staggering, to the point where I almost convinced myself that playing the game more is what I want (what I really want deep down) so I should do it because to deny that want would be unnatural. Then I remember how I end up feeling after hours and hours of the inane activity, and I keep that first-hand experience ever in mind as my conscious focus to resist the inertia of habit.

Today I intend to embark on building up a different kind of momentum, the momentum of cranking the wheel of creativity up in order to get it used to spinning and hopefully to refine its spinning into a more perfect state. Yesterday I resolved to clean and create, and today I have to make good on that resolve or else what good is the power of my will to bring things into existence? If I cannot state a purpose of something so simple as to clean my space and write a story and then follow through, then I must admit that I am not cut out for the Great Work of magic, because nearly every single ritual begins in just that same method.

Last night I had a really shitty dream about my ex-girlfriend. In it, I went to see her in New York as kind of a last stand to try and win her back, and she was already seeing another guy. I woke up and I felt kind of groggy about it all, and then I just started laughing. That's right. I laughed and laughed. Laughter is one of the most powerful tools any Mage can ever employ. I just recently read about it as one of the ways to induce metamorphosis in the practice of Chaos Magic, and lemme tell ya, it totally fucking works. After the laughter had subsided I realized what a silly little joke my subconscious was trying to pull on me, crafting this clever drama in the theater of my mind to try and keep me wrapped up in memories and feelings that I no longer have any use for. It amuses me how we sometimes wallow in self-pity and act like it is the most serious thing in the world, when we would see that it simply makes us look like exaggerated clowns if we could only step outside of ourselves and view it all from a higher perspective.

"The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn. "
--Martin Luther

I read about an experiment the other day that a fellow occultist had devised, a method of rolling dice to see which numbers commonly come up for you, and then TRYING to roll those numbers in a number of trials. I was skeptical of it, but I wanted to give it a shot to see if there is anything to it. There were indeed certain numbers and certain combiations of numbers that came up quite a lot (3+5=8 on 2 six-sided dice), but I had very little luck in willing them to appear. The best I did was 50% of the time in one trial. It was fun though! Either it's bullshit or it's real and just doesn't work for me, or maybe it's both. Paradox is one of those deliciously beautiful things about life that shows you by the mere fact that it exists that all the rules can be broken, you can be free, you can change your stars.

So next time something has you feeling blue, just laugh. Force it if you have to. Do it full-throated. Make it loud and maniacal. Fake it until the absurdity of it all inspires you to laugh in earnest. If you can do this, I think you are one step closer to mastering yourself.

So the other day I started having magical revelations while I was taking my morning walk, and I started thinking about how so many of my favorite writers are both British and magicians, so I bought a lot of books on chaos magic. I appreciate the concept of it because it seems to embody a spirit of do-it-yourself religion, but there is a deeper and more ineffable essence to it all that I can't put perfectly into words at the moment.

There is a sense of always questioning, always expanding your understanding further and further, and seeing the world not just for what it is. Buddhism, my foundation for spirituality, emphasizes clear seeing and understanding things as they are, but chaos magic is almost coming at it from a different angle where you find more and more creative ways to view things. You add a depth to reality by the innovative ways in which you come to view it. Blagh, I can't really explain. It bothers me sometimes, because my philosophy professor used to say that you can't claim to really know something that you can't explain. That's bullshit though. How can you explain what an orange tastes like to someone? All words fail ultimately, and only the experience can communicate reality to people.

There is also more of an emphasis on self-empowerment, self-liberation, and using your knowledge of the world to play it like your instrument. Control and manipulation are inevitably a part of any magical practice. Some shun this notion, but it is what it is. All science and sorcery spring from the ideals of observing cause and effect and then manipulating the causes to produce your desired effects. My study of chaos magic brings me to several basic notions that I find to be the ground of my practice.

First, the human consciousness and how we see things has a very real influence on the nature of reality. The phrase "it's all in how you look at it" comes to mind, which is why shifting your worldview to accommodate whatever you're engaged in is emphasized. For example, I believe there is infinite depth to the human consciousness and also infinite breadth. The rabbit hole goes down a long way. We draw all our magic from our consciousness and the manipulation of other peoples' consciousnesses. This sort of makes the prospect of ghosts MORE frightening for me. I don't believe they exist as some external force of spookiness, but rather as something that comes from within us, which makes it all the more difficult to escape them!!

I'm nuts, and I understand perfectly what I'm talking about, but you probably don't, so I apologize. If you're curious, message me and we'll talk more about it.

Last night I had an unusual dream. Actually, when you break down the psychology of it, it is pretty straightforward. I was some kind of "thing" in human clothing. Be it demon or vampire or werewolf, whatever. I knew I couldn't die, and I knew no harm could come to me from mortal hands. I met this girl, and I suspected she was like me, and I knew better but I was into her anyway. I remember talking about her belly, me saying that I liked it and her saying that it was such a vulnerable place. I remember thinking, I like vulnerability. And I did too, because it meant the best way to kill something, to win, to conquer.

So we get together with some of her friends, and we start to watch a movie. Somewhere through the movie something happens, like some government spooks come looking for her and all the friends hide, but I systematically go through the house and murder all the intruders with my bare hands. And it feels good I guess, but not great. Honestly I don't think about it that much at all. It's like doing a job. I just find one, ignore their gunshots and their knives they stick in me, and I kill them all until I'm covered in their blood. And it just feels right for some reason. That's the weirdest part to me. It just feels like that is how it SHOULD be. It's the ego's best dream come true.

I look for the girl, but she is no where to be found. She slunk away in all the commotion, because that's what she's good at. Disappearing and fading, hitting and running, escaping without a trace. I look for her, but she's gone, and then I make sure the friends are okay, and they're kind of freaked out because at this point I'm mostly naked and covered in blood and it doesn't even strike me as unusual. My favorite part of this dream is that I don't have to give a shit about what anyone else in the world thinks. It just never occurs to me.

Later the next day, the girl shows up again, acting playful about the fact that she disappeared off to some unknown place on some unknown business. We go out that night to a bar, and there are a lot of people I used to know, a couple of ex-girlfriends. They ask me what I'm up to these days, and I think, I'm a murderous creature of the night and it feels pretty damn good. How's grad school, or whatever the fuck it was you did with YOUR life? But I don't say that. I let them make awkward small talk with me while I decide whether or not I'm going to kill them and/or drink their blood. Still, no guilt, no reservations. I guess it is just a predatory thing. A wolf doesn't feel bad about his next meal, I assume. Why should I? But my new ladyfriend keeps my focus. I like that she's a "thing" too. I like that she's not like these others, that she knows the secrets of the world. It makes me feel like we share a special understanding, which is what everyone wants I guess. And the rest of these people feel insignificant because they are on the outside of this understanding.

So yeah, like I said, pretty straightforward. I'm not a complex guy. I just want invulnerable, demonic strength along with the power to kill at a whim for personal benefit, and someone to share it with. Doesn't everyone?

Things haven't changed, but I don't feel really fucked up over it anymore. I think this is a record setting recovery time for me. I've kept trying to talk to the girl about the situation, about whether or not things are salvageable. I still strongly believe that she really loves me in the real sense of the world, but she's acted really pessimistic about even just sharing whatever time we have left before she goes to grad school or travels the world or whatever the hell it is she's going to do. So now I'm just kind of over it. Relationships are too much work for me to feel like I'm the only one doing it all even when I have none of the decision making power as to whether or not we keep seeing each other. So this kind of "c'est la vie" mentality has developed in me and whatever happens happens.

Yesterday I sat down and tried to discern whether or not I'm living my life the best way possible. It helped me get and understanding on some things that I tend to feel irrationally guilty over, like letting my artistic talent slip or go unpolished. But I came to realize that if something doesn't bring me joy or does bring me frustration, like trying to keep up with artwork with a busy seven day work week, then to hell with it. If things don't come naturally and easily, then I'm not going to struggle against them. Life has already got enough stuff to keep me busy without creating more struggle in my mind.

It also got me thinking more about the ways I have come to define magic in my mind, how it all comes through enlightened conscious presence as its base. Magic to me is a essentially empowerment in its essence, and human beings cannot be empowered without first being able to see and understand clearly. They have to be able to cast the light of their consciousness out into the world and observe how it works. Understanding is the major transmuting principle of all our suffering, and the key to giving us the power to truly determine our own actions, to truly choose and exercise our free will. Obviously a lot of Buddhist (mindfulness) and even Christian (free will) ideals have influenced this worldview, but to me all the world's religions are like pieces to a puzzle, each offering their own unique part of the greater picture and when we are able to combine their insights in the right way everything becomes a little bit more clear.

There is also a lot of anarchist ideals creeping in, but maybe not in the way that most people think. Anarchy, believe it or not, links up pretty handily with the notion of the Bodhisattva (the Buddhist equivalent of a saint who puts off nirvana in order to make sure everyone else becomes enlightened first). Anarchy represents not chaos and disorder, but people voluntarily ruling themselves because they realize that it is what is best. It's not a forced or arbitrary rule, but a rule of a person by himself over himself through realization of truth and rationale. It is empowerment of each and every individual, taking responsibility for their lives and actions, and moving themselves down the path of enlightenment. The Bodhisattva too hopes to give people the power to liberate themselves from their own suffering. And the notion of personal empowerment is also one closely bound to magical practice, so it all kind of acts as multiple rivers running towards the same ocean for me.

I'm crying my eyes out as I write this. My relationship went from fine to suddenly falling apart over a matter of one day. One moment I'm in New York visiting my girlfriend, and the next I'm home reading an e-mail about how she isn't ready to live together...in five months.

I guess it's understandable. No it's not. Nothing is understandable to me. I don't understand the fucking world. I don't really feel like I understand anyone in it. I just don't get it.

I can't write or think or say anything rational right now. It's all just pain and insanity talking beyond the things I've already said. I just feel sick to my stomach. The distance has made it turn out this way. Why was I ever optimistic in the first place? Why did I believe, against all the experiences that have come before, that this time it would be different? Why did I think that just because I love this girl in a way that I've loved few others, that such feelings would make a difference? And why is it that love never seems to hold up to paltry things like career or travel or wanderlust or...whatever.

I'm too sick to even wonder about this anymore.

Today whilst I was walking, listening to music, and dreaming up stories I started thinking about how much mysticism is still prevalent in my life and I've decided to scar my body in honor of it all.

The tattoo agenda:

Right hand, middle finger: The Green Lantern ring symbol. The symbolism is multifaceted. Green Lantern represents many things, particularly the power of making your will manifest in the material world. This is pretty big in magical theory as well, and with the exception of the index finger I'd say no finger gives a better message to the world as the middle finger. While it is true that the index is more symbolic of the will to direct, the middle finger is better at expressing disregard for authority and self-rule, the ideal of Anarchy in which everyone rules themselves volutarily, not because they are forced to by an arbitrary governing body.

Left shoulder: Ghostbusters logo. Ghosts represent to me not spooky supernatural entities (whether or not they exist, I'm not certain), but rather illusions of ignorance and the mind which keep people trapped in cycles of suffering. Plus, as a kid, I just loved the Ghostbusters, and I still want to be one to this day. Now they have come to represent the triumph of man over fear, and the facing down of the unknown to cast the light of our conscious upon it, transmuting it into the light itself.

Right shoulder: The emblem of the Rebel Alliance. I think it speaks for itself in regards with its synergy with the other tattoos.

Chest: The Elder Sign, the ward used to consecrate places and things in the Cthulhu Mythos, and seal them off from the power of the dreaded Old Ones and Outer Gods. By placing it over my heart it represents the fact that I have armed myself with the powers of enlightened understanding, compassionate commitment, and devotion to action against the forces that would seek to enslave the minds and bodies of humanity.

Suck it, Old Ones. This house is cleansed.

The Bad News: My bank fucked me on my credit card and took away my 0% interest. I have to pay off a thousand bucks before I start gaining interest, and I found this out the day AFTER I just bought a new laptop. Plus I went to try and sell my XBox, and unsurprisingly, GameStop is an evil ripoff factory filled with shittyness, so I put it up on eBay, but so far no bids. Also I found out (through people and not the lying, misleading government) that I might not get as much back as I thought on my stimulus check, which still won't be here until July 11.

The Good News: I have a new laptop. It is teh rockin'. Through clever maneuvering I have managed to cover all my financial bases as follows: my landlord is going to work with me on rent this month until my money for school and roommate comes in in August, and my boss is going to loan me some money (interest free) so I can put that with the stimulus check to pay off the credit card issued by the bloodsucking Bank of America vampires. Also, I'm going to New York again to see my lady on the 4th of July, which will mean it will only be a month before she comes to see me in August, or as I like to call it, the Golden Month when shit starts working out again.

Closing Arguments: George Bush and John McCain should go to hell, Barack Obama should be the next Captain America, and I now that I'm a grown-up I should get a Green Lantern power-ring "because I said so, that's why."