elanya

Wow. This entry is absolutely *huge*. It definitely deserves an

I rarely feel sick when I'm ill, but when I'm over tired, I often get sypotoms of various ailments, like fevers. I don't think I *actually* have one, but I feel like I do. In the mornings when I'm over tired, my eyes and nose generally won't stop running.

I am over tired because of work. It just hit me a few minutes ago, too. I had to leave the house at 5 to 7 this morning to be at work for eight, and I didn't leave work until 5. When I got off work, I was feeling very awake, and even energized, and I had intended to go to the gym.

This segues very nicely into an explanation of how I conceive time oddly. All day at work, I knew it was Saturday. If anyone had asked, I would have been able to tell them that. I put hundreds of little 'day dots' on various bags of things I weighed (my job is mostly cutting and portioning(weight and bagging), but also involves dipping meat in stuff, and peeling). The dots all said 'Sat'. yet, also all day, I was thinking that since it was Friday, I would go to the gym after work. The gym isn't open after five on Saturday, and granted that I was told the earliest I would be leaving was probably four, I should have known not to bother lugging in my crap. So, basically, where everything else was concerned, I thought it was Saturday. I knew, for example, that Joel would be going grocery shopping without me, because that is apparently immutable a Saturday Event. But for the purposes of the Gym, I have thought it was Friday. Maybe this was some kind of subliminal wishful thinking on my part. In anycase, yay for non-linear time! Or, rather, not-yay, because the gym was closed :/ I walked home from the gym instead though, which is excercise at least, and more than anyone else who lives with me ever gets.

On to other things! I was thinking about a journal update on the walk back, talking about how Foucault's Pendulum appeals to my sense of mysticism. In the book, it seems to me that Casaubon (which I'm probably misspelling, but I'm too lazy to get to the book. And/or too tired. Yay for legitimate excuses!), the narrator, is subtly mocking these conspiracies for being ridiculous, but at thesame time, the mysteries (or those involved in them) are mocking him right back. They are like... mutually patronizing, possibly in more than one sense of the word. It has been my theory from very early on that a lot of what happens is some sort of well, trap, maybe, or slow proccess of initiation for him by the true possessors of the mysteries. I don't thik they want to tell him the secret. But they want him to know that there really is one, and that it is worth knowing, and so they have tricked him into following it. I don't know if Belbo is involved, or if he is just a tool. I feel bad for Belbo a lot. Lorenza kind if reminds me of my friend Madeline. Not because they act alike (though that is kind of true), but because they are both agressive, and aware of their power, sexual and oterwise, over people.

Anyway, on my walk back from the (closed :( ) gym, I was thinking about writing a post about my secret affair with mysticism. I don't think I have the energy or mental alertness to get into it all now, but I'll make some basic links. When I fell in love with Greek mythology, either late in grade nine or early in grade ten (I think the latter. I remember reading the Illiad in grade ten, and I think things went from there), I mostly fell in love with Hermes. I used to have day dreams/fantasies that he would fall in love with me, and then come to earth in mortal guise, so we could be together, and he would teach me the secrets of the gods, and magic, and numbers, and so on. While *that* never quite happened, it was near the end of grade ten (and still in this Greek-loving phase) that I met Joel, and coincidentally he impressed me with his knowledge of Greek things in general (he was a Classics student at the time), and the next time I saw him, he lent me a copy of Edith Hamilton's Mythology, which at that time I thought I couldn't find anywhere. Later I discovered that there were about 20 copies of it in the highschool library, but, ahh well. I found *them* when I went through my Norse phase, which was inspired by my finally getting around to reading Tolkien (something encouraged by Joel and/or Hazel's interest, and also Madeline's). I used to know how to translate the (Nordic) runes to English from memory, and knew their meanings as well. Now I only remeber a few of them off the top of my head, and the meanings for even fewer. I do, however, have all that information copied down from I book I found in that library, on the day I found all thopse copies of Mythology. The ony reason I have it still is that it got transfered to my gaming binder when I ran my Mage game (however many years ago that was... First year university, maybe?).

(For the record, I'm editing this paragraph in after havign finished writing all the rest of it, but it seems to fit best here. The historian in me thinks you deserve to know that ;) Another strange mystical university related experience came one day when my friend Kate brought in her very cool deck of Celtic Tarot cards. They had various ways of being interpreted, but one of them was by the runes (ogham, I believe) along the side of the 'minor arcana' type ones. Apart from those, there were some other cards that had
significance (sacred trees, perhaps?) without any runes on them. She gave them to me to look at. Now, I think I shuffled them, and so did she at the time (or else she was just having me on, which is possible). Anyway, when I returned them to her, they were all arranged in order by runes, with the non-runic ones inserted randomly (in no particular order we could discern, anyway). It was a freaky kind of cool. I felt special. Now I wonder. Maybe they were already sorted, maybe she was having me on about their being in order (but she showed me, and there did seem to be a pattern, not that I knew/know ogham from diagonal slash marks on the sides of stones ;). I hope it was true, though. I cherish my brushes with mystical coincidence.

I also used to be very good at reading tarot cards. Partly because I could fairly well remember the meanings of all the cards, but partly because I was (and still am) good at reading people, and situations. It is always easier to read for people you know, I found. I wonder if I could still do it now. My tarot cards are at home, wrapped in a piece of brocade-y white cloth. I used to have a dress of the same material (the cards are wrapped in scraps). It was a long, flowing, white gown, with bell sleeves. I thought of it as being very druidic. I wore it when I was on staff at cadet camp (summer of grade ten or eleven? Was I was in Cadets still when I was in Macbeth? I don't remember, but that would clinch it one way or another. Anyone else?), and I was asked if it was religious. I told them no, with vague embarrasment. It wasn't, really, but it made me feel *mystical*. I wanted to walk across the parade square in the early morning, with my hair down (it was staring to get long then), through the thick coastal Nova Scotian fog. They told me I couldn't wear it out, either because they thought it was indecent (the material was a bit thin, but not indecently so, I think), or... I don't remember. In retrospect, I think they didn't want me wearning it because other people might think it was religious too. Which is ironic. It it was, they couldn't have made me stop. Of course, this was (is?)an organization that only had two divisions of religion: Catholic or Protestant. I had a mormon friend (Charlene), who was insulted and afraid because she was forced to go to one of the services, when it was expressly against her religion to do so.

Boy, I hope you guys like these tangential posts as much as I do ^-^

In another mystic cadet experience, I took my Tarot cards with me when I went on exchange to Charleston. I met a variety of people there. Or maybe I'm thinking of the shorter exchange to Ottawa? It's all a blur. I don't remember most of my cadet times unless I really think about them. I think it was Charleston. I got to be the freaky one on that trip. I relished it. I know I scared people, and that was empowering. I did tarot readings for the girls. It was easy... In some ways, it is kind of like astrology, because you can generalize so much. In other ways, it is like an excuse to give advice if you do know what is going on. One girl, I remember, wanted to know if her boyfriend was cheating on her while she was away. I don't remember what I read, but I remember how I interpreted it to her (I wasn't lying, understand. I was interpreting. That's how it works, see?). I basically told her that if she had to ask me that, they she probably wasn't secure in her relationship, and didn't trust her boyfriend, so she should think about that and maybe talk to him and figure out what she wanted to do when she got home. I did some pther freaky things. A friend of mine, named Amanda, convinced a poor American Sea Cadet that I had cursed him for calling me a bitch. I chose to let him believe, but neither confirmed, nor denied. He joked at first, but a few hours later he was begging me to remove it. The power of suggestion, I suppose. This boy later confessed to Amanda (whom he had a crush on) that he believed he had been abducted by aliens and they had taken sperm samples. There was also an incident where, out of boredom I carried on a short charade about there being voices (of the dead children of the world, if I recall correctly) in my head, that I spoke to. I think this happened because someone caught me talking to myself. It eventually creeped them (the other girls) out enough that they had to really ask me if I was serious, and if I wasn't, to stop.

There was another girl there. I don't think she was a cadet. I don't know who she was at all, in fact. Or, rather, I don't remember. I have a vague omage of her in my mind. I think she was black, but not extremely dark skinned, and had chin lenght hair... My mind may be playing trick on me. I read her fortune. I have no idea what I said to her, my memory is too indistinct. In exchange, she gave me a little white box of cardboard with some clear plastic sparkly glitter shaped like hearts and stars, and a small quartz crystal. I tried to keep them together for the longest time, but eventually the box died. I still have the crystal.

From here, there are two points I could diverge to, but I'll pick the one that came to mind earlier (the Druid), rather than the one I just thought of now (the Stones). I'll get to them shortly though. I feel like I'm on a roll now. I'm going to have to go back and make this an lj-cut post, I think.

The Druid. We shall start by explaining that my first contact with any kind of paganism was through a girl named Beverly White. I met her through a church group, though she had turned to Wiccanism at the time. I didn't really know what it was about. Someone (maybne it was Kate?) mentioned it was something to do with fertility rites and some kind of secret forest rituals. I didn't really know, but was secretly intrigued. When I was in Charleston, one of the guys who worked at the administration office of where we were staing was a wiccan. He had a big hat and wore some crystals around his neck. One of the French girls asked me about Wiccanism, and I couldn't really tell her much. this got related to him somehow, and I think he was (understandaly) offended. I knew I was wrong, but I didn't have anything else to add, and I wanted to assure them that it wasn't Satanic. I lost my chance to learn more in that situation. And now we come to the Druid. ladyiolanthe was there when I met him. A hard-core pagan, that one. We met him at an SCA event in Woodstock. We were rooming with another girl whose name I embarrasingly forget. She had just decided to turn to Wiccanism, after going through some really hard times in her life. I think and hope that the SCA was kind of helping her with them too. She was the kind of person who was looking for strength in a Greater Power, but felt failed by Christianity. She was young, and an outcast, and so latched onto the support she found in the pagan community... kind of like Beverly, I suppose, but I';m hoping she didn't not write stalker-ish letters to Maria Sirtis asking for psycological help. The Druid was there to give a demonstration of Falconry. He hadn't been able to bring his hawks, though, because he was an American. As I said, he was a hardcore pagan. He was going for a very nordic look, with long hair and long mustace. He was fairly old (40-ish or more?) and was balding on top. He looked kind of like he had walked out of a fanatsy drawing. I don't remember if the long grey robe was garb or not. He claimed to read auras, and he had a ball of smoked quartz. I had already started with the stones then, so that itself fascinated me. It was fairly large, and he said it was quite rare, and that people had offered him a lot of money for it, but that he had refused. (As a side note, whenever someone says something like that to me, I feel like they should give me the object in question. Like when something that personally significant gets passed along, it becomes more powerful, and the person who receives it marked by the World as Special. I want to be a protagonist, you see. It was this kind of feeling that led me to get involved in the bookcrossing. The fact that a book is a precious thing to give away makes the release that much more significant. It was euphoric, really, to abandon Conjure Wife, and especially so since it was such an old and distinct edition). I listened as he and the girl whose name I forget talked about things. I think it was a very fortuitous meeting for her. He talked about the auras, and I think at that point C wandered off, because it really wasn't her cup of tea. He did tell her what colour her aura was, but I don't remember. And the other girl. I asked about mine, but he said that he couldn't read it. Was that good or bad I wondered? I still wonder. I was discouraged. I wonder if that was intentional on his part? He and the nameless initiate talked a lot longer, but I went to bed. When in the final class, grade twelve year, Mme Peltier-Robichaud admitted that she associated people and things, and whatnot with colours, I really wanted to ask what my colour was, but it would have been outside of the boundaries I had set for myself to act withing in a scholastic setting, if that makes any sense. It would have seemed out of character, and it would have been a public admission of my curiousity in such phenomenon. For the record, any of you who had her, that was how she chose how to colous-code her clases... on instinct. 'This year is a green year. Class 8-H is a yellow class' and so on.

Now to the stones. Some of you know that I collect polished stones. I pick them by instict, too. I tend to buy them in batches (small ones), and I remember what stones go together. I think they have a kind of power, but not the kind that you necessarily read about in hokey occult books on gems. I personally believe that power in objects comes *from* belief, so I have created myself a paradigm. It is mainly a tool of relaxation. Polished rocks feel smooth and cool, and their weight is, well, relaxing, to be redundant. It is like meditation, I suppose. Lie back, in a dark room, put some stones on my eyes, sometimes under my eyes, on my forehead, on my cheeks, in the hollow of my throat, over my heart or lungs, on my lips. It is whimsical, and I chose the stones on whims, based on weight (it is important to have stones of similar sizes and shapes on opposite sides of the face, because a-symmetry is distracting. Also, in general, I dislike the articifially coloured agates. The bright colours are so unnatural. I have always prefered more subdude tones, and not just in rocks.), and type, I have my own secret list of properties that I have decided, based on appearance, mostly), and shape, and etc. I really can't believe I'm admitting this in public, but really, like I said, it is mostly meditative. It is extremely relaxing, and I like to do it when I am feeling ill... especially feverish. The coolness of the stones draws away the heat, and *that* is simply physics ;p When I was in Sheffield, I had a small-mini shrine set up to showcase my rocks. I have special decorative boxes for them now (somethign else I collect). Both were gifts: one from C (a box that delights me because of its carvings and it's trick opening, even though it is a simple trick and could easily be forced open), and one from Lisa, which was an ingenious choice of gift on her part, because it is the perfect size (almost the same as C's), and has brass inlay on the top. Now both boxes and all the rocks are on a shelf in my closet. I feel like I'm betraying them, somehow. Maybe I'll use them tonight, but I mibht feel awkward with Joel there.

Alright, I think that's everything... My mind is drawing a blank, in anycase, and it is time for me to shower and go to bed. Possibly past that time, hmmm... Oh, I nenver did mention any of the scool things I managed to divert towards the occult. Like my projects on Kabbalah, and Reiki. But I really need sleep.