1. Johnathon Strange and Mr. NorrellWell, I'm still reading (slowly) Susanna Clarke's
Johnathon Strange and Mr. Norrell. I'd be faster, I suppose, if I didn't read 3-4 books at a time. Still reading
The White Goddess and now I'm reading Esther Harding's
Woman's Mysteries Ancient and Modern.
The first thing a student of magic learns is that there are books about magic and books of magic. (Susanna Clarke's Johnathon Strange and Mr. Norrell)
Remember that? Remember I
speculated that the author was writing both about the 19th century (setting for her historical novel) and about the 20th/21st centuries as well? Well, this week I ran across the
Society for the Academic Study of Magic (SASM). Clearly, this group falls in the "about magic" category:
Please note - the orientation of SASM (and our associated Journal) is toward the scholarly study of magic and its history, sociology, philosophy, psychology, literature etc., rather than ‘hands-on’ participation in its practical application.
and
We cannot recommend a particular teacher, coven or magical practice to enquirers, nor do we perform spells for you.
I wonder what Mr. Norrell (who tries to put non-practicing magicians out of business, cleverly) would think of this group?
2. Of Magic: Energetic SupportMy dear friend Cheryl is recovering slowly and with great difficulty from a double-surgery she had last week. Cheryl is in her mid 50s, she's disabled, and she's in poor health. Her troubles started about 20 years ago when she had one of the early gastric bypass surgeries. It gave her arthritis and did damage that has necessitated several more surgeries to fix hernias, etc.
This current surgery was a hysterectomy because of pre-cancerous cells in the lining of her uterus that didn't respond to medication. The medication was supposed to shrink the uterine lining and dissuade the cancerous cell growth, but it didn't work. So, surgery. They had to do some more repair work on her abdomen before they could perform the hysterectomy: thus, the double surgery.
When she came out of surgery, which went well, apparently, she went into Intensive Care as a precaution (or so the docs said), but three days later she was still dependent on the respirator and at risk of becoming dependent on it permanently. Cheryl asked for a ritual, and miraculously a small group of friends got permission to go into the ICU and do a ritual around Cheryl's bed. The next day? Cheryl was off the respirator, but still not out of trouble. Since then, she's left the ICU and been moved to a regular ward, but she's in much pain and they won't give her pain medications because those interfere with her ability to breathe. She's worn down from the uterus problems, the side-effects of the medicine she took for six months (whence the respiratory problems), and the stress of this current surgery. She needs all the energetic support she can get. (And don't we all?)
Many of us have been giving energetic support to Cheryl since we heard she'd have to have surgery, and that energetic support is ongoing. Some of us were able to provide energetic support remotely during her ICU-ritual. If you read this and are inspired to do something for Cheryl, please pray or light a candle or burn incense or make an offering to a deity, or hold her in your thoughts. She's a mother and a grandmother, a daughter and a sister, a dear friend. If this helps: she's in the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin. Thank you!
3. World as PlaygroundWell, I suppose it was bound to happen. I'm a participant in Survivor. No, not the television show. It's a BlogShares challenge.
BlogShares? It's one of the most fun games and communities online, as far as I'm concerned, and it's also the foundation for
QuackTrack, "the world's largest browsable blog index." Playing BlogShares has been a therapy for me since my nephew's death. I know that's a strange statement, and an even more strange phenomenon, but think of it like this:
Spiritual traditions have tended to look at the world in four major ways: as a battlefield, as a trap, as a lover, and as the self. The first two - as a stage set for our moral battles or as a prison to escape - are probably familiar, and have in many ways contributed to our lack of care for the world. But what of the other two? Might they shed some useful light on life in an interconnected world? (
Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self)
I think another worldview should be added to this list: world as playground. When this concept is discussed, there's usually negative thought attached to it. Words like
hedonism and
playboy come into the conversation. The spiritual possibilities of play as worldview are dismissed. Wrongly so, I think. Play is a basic animal behavior. It's intrinsic to how we learn, how we love, how we fight, how we grow, how we make art and culture, how we express ourselves. I don't think being playful and being spiritual (or being serious) have to be opposites. So, I claim a bit of playground in my spiritual worldview.
Survivor is a game within a game. It's overt function is to create fun and community. It's covert function is to help build the BlogShares and QuackTrack Indices (nested tree of blog categories). The week-one team challenge is to sleuth out eight Industries (or sub-Industries) in the QuackTrack Index that have no blogs in them yet, and then to add as many blogs as (accurately) possible to those Industries. My team is precocious. We just started today and have already discovered our eight Industries. Notice the first one, which fits so nicely into the topic of this post:
Illusion and Magic
UFO/Aliens
Precious Metals
Taoism
Genomics
Fashion Photography
Ecotourism
Snowboarding
A little something for (almost) everyone. Stay posted. I hope to win! Gosh, I don't even know what the prize is....
Haloscan:
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Blogger:
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Blue! Thanks for visiting my blog, and for your beautiful compliments. I visited your blog, added a comment to your Dream Woman post, and added you to my blogroll.
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