TechnoWitch.org

I did something I don’t usually do today:  I bought something for myself!  And, it wasn’t a book.  Well, there was a book with it, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Dream as the Hierophant from the Vertigo Tarot

For about eleven years I’ve used the Vertigo Tarot deck pretty exclusively.  It was one of the second set of limited edition decks released and until the 20th anniversary reprint of the cards, it was one of only 10,000 that had ever been made.  That and my knowledge of many of the DC Vertigo characters that made up the Major Arcana of the deck (e.g. Dream, Delirium, John Constantine, etc.) made it a unique and uniquely suited deck for my purposes.

But, I can’t find it now.  I suspect that it was packed away and put in storage with roughly 97% of my belongings as I left Illinois, but I can’t be sure.  I vividly recall separating the deck from the rest of my stuff with the intention to bring it to Pennsylvania with me, but now it’s not here.  It’s not in my house; that was empty before we left it.  But, for some reason, I wanted cards and I wanted them NOW!

So, being the good little TechnoWitch that I am, I decided to use the high-resolution scanned images that I made of the deck (have I mentioned I’m a complete nerd recently) to create an app that would allow me to “shuffle” the deck and choose the cards in a pseudo-random fashion.  That was, of course, when I found out that I was missing the scans for most of the Wands in the deck.  I have no idea when or how I lost them.  They weren’t even in the back up that I have of my laptop, so it’s possible that they have been missing for some time.  Regardless, it was beginning to seem like I wasn’t supposed to be using that deck at this moment.

Considering I might not be getting my stuff out of storage in Massachusetts for months, I decided that it was time to look into a new set of cards.  Searching online at retail sites and at tarot forums (especially Aeclectic Tarot), I narrowed it down to two possibilities:  I’d get either the Deviant Moon (hereafter: DM) or the Shadowscapes deck.  Along the way, I found a blog with deck reviews which helped a lot and the writer of that blog posted images of those two sets online in their entirety.  To be honest, I can only hope she had permission, but if not at least it generated a sale.  It was also somewhat random that I found that site since it was in the show notes for the 70th episode of Inciting a Riot, a podcast I listen to, which recently decided to add a segment on tarot.  This episode’s segment:  selecting a deck!  Coincidence?  Yeah, probably, but they all seemed a little too perfect for me not to interpret them as signs.

I went back and forth for a few days, asked my partner for her advice (she voted Shadowscapes), and today I went out to the locale Barnes & Noble and they had them both.  I was hoping that only one would be in stock and, thus, make my choice for me.  But as I stood there, I weighed the merits of them.  The DM deck was dark, cold, stark, and seemed to evoke a certain thrill as I looked at the images online.  It’s also fairly similar to the Vertigo Tarot in tone and both use photo manipulation to create the cards.  The Shadowscapes Tarot, on the other hand, is a series of beautiful watercolor paintings rich in color and detail.  Surrounded by animals and faeries, the cards were vibrant and, frankly, very different from both the DM and the Vertigo decks in construction, theme, tone, and even color palette.

I couldn’t decide, so I figured I’d flip a coin, so to speak, and used my pentacle necklace as a pendulum asking Eris to assist in my decision.  A side-to-side swing would mean that I’d buy the DM and an up-down swing would be for Shadowscapes.  I did my best not to influence things, but I must admit that I was expecting the DM to be the winner.  It wasn’t; it took a bit of circling, but eventually there was a clear up-down swing that was actually somewhat increasing in amplitude.  A decision was made.

I unwrapped it later when I got home and I have to say, I’m very happy with the decision.  There are four cards that I particularly look at when evaluating a deck:  the Lovers, Death, the Knight of Cups, and the Nine of Pentacles.

Each one of them speaks to me from this deck, which I think is a good sign for its overall “connection.”  If you’ll forgive the phrase, I love that the Lovers are actually kissing.  I looked at a few decks where they were simply holding hands or facing each other with a longing expression on their face, but this card is about the reckless abandoning of yourself in the pursuit of your Love in what ever form it takes and not letting anything hold you back.  Holding hands doesn’t speak to me of that level of passion.  The card is full of symbols (acorns, crowns, flowers, etc.) that I’ll have to unpack later, but one jumped out at me:  by their feet on the right is a snake and an apple.  Okay, so it’s a golden snake with a red apple instead of my tattoo, which is a red snake with a golden apple, but either way I was quite pleased to see that tiny addition to the artwork.

Death is pictured in bright colors as a phoenix.  I don’t think much more needs to be said on that other than this:  it’s awesome.  No skeletons, no skulls, no dark, gloomy, or even sinister representations like with other decks.  Just a phoenix, resplendent in its glory, wings aflame and reaching toward the skies.

The Knight of Cups is a hard one.  This is a card that I’ve often chosen to represent myself.  It’s an active, motive card but within the suit if cups — emotions and intuition — it’s sort of a paradox.  It has, for me, often depicted the type of person willing to make intuitive leaps without fully understanding the logic of a situation.  Or, a person who uses emotions and their understanding of them to further their daily work like a teacher or psychologist.  Or, in my unique case, a computer programmer (despite what others will tell you, computers work by magic and intuition is a far better way to find your way through a problem space than logic and procedure).

Finally, the Nine of Pentacles is a card that was named mine by some slightly mathematical numerological process that was included with my first tarot deck.  I don’t remember it all, but I recall that if you find my birth number, it’s nine. I don’t remember how Pentacles were brought into the mix.  Regardless, the fact that the figure on the card is playing the piano was quite a joy as I play it, too.  Plus, the symbol above the piano in the card reminds me of this artwork by some dude at deviantart.com.  It’s not exact but the connection has meaning to me because for some time, before I decided to use representations of my own tattoos for the design elements of the site, that artwork was going to be the “logo” for TechnoWitch.org.  That I immediately connected it to the Nine of Pentacles in this deck seemed to reinforce the sense that this was the right decision to have made, even if I did base it on chance in the end.  Well, chance and the advice of my partner.

Frankly, there’s a non-zero chance that I’ll find my way toward purchasing the DM deck at some point in the future just to have it for a bit.  I do think that the artwork calls to me, so much so that I almost didn’t get the Shadowscapes.  And had I not, I think I may have been disappointed.  Of course, I wouldn’t have had the deck so I wouldn’t know what I was missing, so I couldn’t have been disappointed, I suppose, but you know what I mean.

What is your core work, regardless of conditions?

— T. Thorn Coyle (@ThornCoyle) April 13, 2012

The above was tweeted by Thorn Coyle today and it got me to thinking.  My core work is yet to be determined, I think.  I’ve found my interfaith work with various people at the University of Illinois, especially with respect to the Illinois Conference on Interfaith Collaboration, to be heartwarming in every sense of the term and I look forward to arriving in the greater Boston/Providence area this summer where I’ll have to make new connections with interfaith activists.

Similarly, I continue to feel as if I’m being called to deepen my understanding of the practice of my faith and not just the philosophy.  You may have heard the term an Easter/Christmas Christian for those who only attend church during those holidays.  Similarly, growing up, my family was pretty much a group of Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur Jew.  But, for the last six months or so, I’ve truly felt that I need to work hard at training myself to be more completely Pagan.

And perhaps this process of transformation is my core work:  to grow, to shift, to adapt, to change.

Appropriate considering my work with Eris, no?

The White Rabbit from Disney's Alice in Wonderland

A few years ago I had an experience that I couldn’t explain at the time.  More recently, after reading posts from friends of mine who have more experience with trance states and the information that one can find during them, I’ve begun to wonder if it might have had more significance at the time and whether it could still have significance for me now.

I don’t remember exactly when this all occurred.  I know that I had prepared some incense and settled in for a bit of meditation, but had no specific intentions toward a trance journey of any sort.  I also haven’t had a similar experience to this since, but I’ve not been seeking one so I question whether a person get’s slapped upside the head more than once over the same issue without following up.

So, without further delay, this is what I remember.  The world, as I perceived it, was heavily tinted blue.  I was outdoors and approaching a Victorian house.  Behind the house was a forest or at least a series of tall trees.  I don’t recall recognizing the structure even thought my parents own a home of a similar style.  In other words, I don’t think I was seeing their home.  There was a porch along the front of the building with an overhanging roof.  The roof was supported by three or more vertical posts and between the posts were two rows of squares for decoration just under the roof.  The building itself was darker than the ambient area except for the roof (of the building and the porch) and the porch supports which were white.  There were some windows which were also bordered in white.

I moved toward the house but instead of walking up the stairs to the porch, I turned and headed down the right hand side of the building.  There, I met a white rabbit.  It was in profile to me, so I could see that it was an adult.  As I approached, it turn and ran away and made a right turn through a hedge of some kind.  My brain remembers it as the entrance to a hedge maze, but I’m don’t recall perceiving the maze itself; just the hedge which surrounded it.

And that’s it.  I wonder, now, if there wasn’t something deeper that I was to glean in the maze or if this was an invitation to learn more.  Or, I might have just dozed off.  Regardless, my experiences thus far haven’t equipped me with the knowledge of how to pursue this further.  Considering this all came to me in a trance of some kind, it seems logical that I may need to seek information from other worlds, but I don’t know where to begin and some of the stories I’ve heard from others definitely indicates that one should take care when seeking knowledge in this fashion.

Thus, if anyone has any resources that they’d like to suggest, I’m all ears (rabbit joke intended).

A quick note:  in the past I’ve written and published posted immediately and usually at about this time of the day.  I’m going to be changing that up starting tomorrow morning.  I’ve written a post, but I’ve tried to set it up so that it’ll just auto-post tomorrow morning.  I’m hoping that this will allow more people to see the post on Twitter, Facebook, etc. and may generate more conversation that way.

Believe in the power of beginning anew: take up that which was set aside.

— T. Thorn Coyle (@ThornCoyle) March 22, 2012

That tweet from T. Thorn Coyle inspired me to try and begin this site anew.  It was most certainly cast aside as real-life took focus.  Since we last “spoke” I’ve moved to a new state, canceled plans to attend Pagan Spirit Gathering in June, established necessary travel plans back to Illinois in April, put my house in Illinois on the market for sale, and I’m beginning the process of trying to find a place to live in Massachusetts by July when my wife begins work in that area.

Thus, I make here a commitment is made to writing every day.  It might not always be on this site (I have three potential sites that I could update) but I’ll be writing something even if it’s a relatively useless post saying that I won’t be writing anything today!  Why?  To get me in the habit of writing, which I think is one of the reasons that I have such trouble keeping at it.

I do have some interesting news with respect to the purpose of this site—i.e. online religious discussions.  I have secured, as I mentioned above, travel arrangements in April back to Illinois for the first Illinois Conference on Interfaith Collaboration (ICIC).

ICIC was originally simple the response by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to the President’s Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge.  We did our best to run some service events during the Fall 2011 semester with limited success but did succeed in lecture series that took place on the first Tuesday of every month.  Toward the end of the semester, though, we realized that we had the infrastructure from that program to build something else which turned into ICIC.

When I moved away from Illinois, I feared that I wouldn’t be able to get back to the state for the conference and when I found out that I couldn’t even cash in a free plane ticket coupon I had for that weekend, things seemed particularly dire.  But, I found another flight that would get me into Chicago and then I can get the train from there to Champaign and things should work out swimmingly.  Assuming, of course, I can figure out how to get from O’Hare to Union Station!

I’ll be hosting a conversation on the inclusion of non-Abrahamic faiths in Interfaith events during ICIC, which I hope will get some people thinking.  I was worried that if I couldn’t make it back to Illinois that the workshop wouldn’t take place.  But, now that I will be back in town  for the conference, I’ll be putting something together for it.  As that takes shape, I’ll probably talk more about that here.  It seems an appropriate forum for preparational musings!

To be completely honest, I’m actually sort of frightened.

I’ve never really blogged before.  Sure, I have a site all about my Shadowrun game which has a log of the sessions so that’s sort of like a blog.  And like that one, this one has a general theme at the intersection of Technology and Paganism, but beyond that, it’s pretty much anything-goes around these parts.

And that has me frightened.  Or, maybe worried is a better term.

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